WARREN — Trumbull County sent out in February more than $2 million worth of refunds to area farmers who overpaid property taxes due to an error in how their Current Agricultural Use Values were calculated from 2020 through 2022.

County Auditor Martha Yoder said she is working to ensure that the owners of properties that were sold, but may have overpaid their taxes during that time, also are compensated.

CAUV is a state program that values commercial farmland at its use rather than at market value. Soil values are used to set the CAUV. This method reduces property taxes for farmers.

State officials determine the CAUV every three years. These values are sent to the county to use in their evaluations.

Yoder said she was approached by Mandy Orahood, Ohio Farm Bureau organization director, on her second day after officially becoming the auditor in 2023, about a problem some members of the farm bureau were having with the taxation of their properties.

Orahood represents farmers in Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake and Trumbull counties. She described the problem as unique to Trumbull County.

“The Farm Bureau brought to my attention that some CAUV soil values were incorrect,” Yoder noted in an email to the Tribune Chronicle.

An investigation found that 17 out of 100 soil values were not entered properly in 2020. These incorrect values were used for the tax years 2020, 2021 and 2022.

“The person that entered the incorrect information no longer works for the county,” Yoder said.

Instead of using the 2020 CAUV numbers, the farmers were being billed based on CAUV numbers calculated in 2014 and 2017, when the property values were much higher than in 2020.

The errors affected taxes for more than 3,200 parcels reviewed during those years.

“We worked with our software company to recalculate the taxes for those years and determine the refunds — in some cases, amounts owed — and establish the best and most efficient way to issue refunds,” Yoder wrote.

There is money owed to the county from owners of about 30 properties. Owners of other properties may receive refunds.

“It was difficult finding out exactly what happened and how widespread the problem was,” Yoder said. “The Farm Bureau has been very patient with us as we worked to find out how to correct it.”

Orahood described Yoder taking on an issue that occurred prior to her taking office and working for more than a year to solve it.

Steve Kacerski, a Trumbull farmer and bureau member, said he received a refund check last week.

“It’ll probably just be used to pay this year’s property taxes,” he joked. “Auditor Yoder and her team worked hard to solve the problem.”