Welcome New Members!!
Welcome to the SDAAO! You have just embarked on a challenging adventure. As an appraiser/assessor you will meet many obstacles, yet with time and plenty of help from others, you will learn how to overcome them with ease.
​
Our mission at the county level is a fair & equitable assessment of real property for taxation purposes. Learning and understanding South Dakota's tax system is a vital part of understanding your role in the Equalization office. We in the Equalization offices are the basis of the tax system as we set the assessments taxes are based on.
​
You will quickly learn we are not the most popular county office, and from time to time you may feel as if you have entered into a thankless profession, but over time you will come to know and understand how fundamentally important your job is to the taxpayers of South Dakota.
​
Remember help is just a phone call or email away. The SDAAO is a tight-knit group of people with skills from a variety of backgrounds and, cumulatively, centuries of experience in the field of assessing. Everyone is open and willing to help whenever possible, and we every one of us remember well what it was like in the early years, when you feel as if you might never learn everything there is to know about assessing...and the truth is, we will never know everything.
​
​
​
​