Davis County commissioners Tuesday approved using $100,000 out of the county's rainy-day fund to hire eight temporary part-time employees for the Davis County Assessor's Office.

The assessor's office has been understaffed in recent years, and the employees will help catch the office up on assessing commercial, as well as residential, property.

Davis County Assessor James Ivie expects to assess the entire county in 2008 instead of just 20 percent — the minimum required by law.

Various county residents were outraged this summer when they received valuation notices that showed their property values and property taxes would double or more this year.

Bountiful had the largest average increase in values in the county at more than 30 percent. Countywide, the average was 19.4 percent.

In August, Bountiful residents packed into Farmington Junior High to demand that county officials make some changes.

They had previously approved the purchase of aerial photography software designed to speed up the appraisal process.

And recently, commissioners, the Davis Board of Education, Weber Basin Water Conservancy District and Bountiful city combined to approve nearly $5.7 million to be used for a one-time tax reduction called an "equity abatement" that will show up automatically for properties that saw at least a 24 percent increase in value since 2005.

Davis County Clerk/Auditor Steve Rawlings said between 18,000 and 20,000 properties in the county fit that description.

He said 58 percent of those properties are in Bountiful, 13 percent are in North Salt Lake, 9 percent are in Farmington and 7 percent are in Kaysville. The remaining 13 percent are located in the other 11 cities in Davis County.

But county officials recognized that the equity abatement is a one-year, one-time fix.

Ivie said the temporary employees will help with some of the data collection that is necessary before his office assesses properties in 2008.

Ivie told commissioners Tuesday that the tax burden can shift to residential properties if commercial properties aren't assessed regularly. Three of the new employees will focus on commercial property. Ivie hopes to make those employees permanent during 2008.

"Every year we should be able to re-evaluate every residential property in the county," Ivie said.

Commissioner Louenda Downs called the new employees "money well spent" and efforts to reappraise the entire county "time and efforts well spent."

Ivie said he hopes to urge the Utah Legislature to make Utah a full-disclosure state, meaning that home sale prices are reported to the government for appraisal purposes. Utah is one of seven states where full disclosure isn't required, Ivie said.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com