Knapp seeks Kootenai County assessor seat, touts experience and stability

Allyson Knapp is telling Kootenai County voters that the assessor’s office is not just a back-office job, it is where property values turn into tax bills for homes, storefronts and new subdivisions across the county. The former chief deputy assessor, who spent 30 years in appraisal work, is challenging incumbent Béla Kovacs in the May 19 Republican primary and casting the race as a choice between steady management and more disruption.

Knapp’s pitch rests on experience. She worked inside the Kootenai County Assessor’s Office before leaving in 2022, and she said she did not jump into the race quickly. After thinking it over and hearing encouragement from community members, she decided to run, arguing that the office needs someone who understands both the technical side of valuation and the administrative demands of running a county department. In her view, that matters because assessors determine value as of Jan. 1 each year, generally at 100% of market value less exemptions, and those numbers feed directly into the property taxes that support schools, cities, counties, law enforcement, fire protection, highways and libraries.

Her campaign has also leaned on the practical problems that have unsettled taxpayers in recent years. Kootenai County dealt with a $53 million property-value error in late 2023 that delayed tax notices and affected seven taxing districts. In June 2024, the county mailed nearly 7,000 corrected tax assessment notices after a database error hit commercial assessments. The Idaho State Tax Commission said it lacked authority to investigate a county complaint about inaccurate and timely property-value information, a reminder that local confidence in the assessor’s office depends heavily on the office itself getting the work right the first time.

Knapp says she would rebuild working relationships with other county departments and with the state, which she believes have frayed over the past six years. She also wants better customer service and more appraisers in fast-growing areas such as Post Falls, Rathdrum and Coeur d’Alene, where new construction and revaluations keep piling up. She argues that assessment still requires human judgment and neighborhood-level knowledge, not just faster processing.

The race has already picked up extra heat. Knapp announced her candidacy on Aug. 28, 2025, and county commissioners later upheld her homeowner’s exemption on a Rathdrum property after Kovacs found her ineligible. A September 2025 report also said some assessor-office employees were uneasy about a policy tied to support for a potential challenger. At a May 1 candidate forum at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library, about 100 people heard growth, future planning and public trust emerge as the central themes, showing how closely this office is tied to household finances and confidence in county government.