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Kelly Tennant’s story starts as many others in agriculture do, but her current day job impacts Ohio ag more than most.

She is the daughter of a livestock and row crop farmer, the late Richard Sautter. She still raises beef cattle, hay and other crops in Morrow and Richland counties. A longtime Morrow County Farm Bureau member, she initially left the farm after high school in 1988 to pursue higher education at Wilmington College.

But she had a bigger dream: She wanted to attend Ohio State University and be a member of its award-winning livestock judging team. Summoning her farm-kid work ethic mixed with her desire to reach her next goal, that’s just what she did. She became one of two women on the team three-plus decades ago, while also double majoring in ag communications and animal science.

It was during summer break in the early 1990s that she was asked to fill a seasonal job in Franklin County for Joe Testa, who was county auditor at the time.

“I spent the summer driving around the county and making sure farmers were in CAUV compliance,” she said. She remembers a pivotal moment when she had to inform Testa that one of the county’s better known agriculturalists was, in fact, not in compliance.

It was important that she wasn’t wrong, but more important to her was making sure she was preserving the integrity of the program.

Decades later that commitment has brought her to the Ohio Department of Taxation where she serves as executive administrator of the Division of Tax Equalization, the department that oversees CAUV in the state.

It was in her college days that Tennant learned she had a knack for something that would prove essential for the career path she ultimately found herself embarking upon.

“I like critical thinking and putting the big picture into perspective,” she said. “Ohio was built on ag. It is very critical that we keep an eye on the market and trends and look at every aspect of all of it very closely.”

Her professional career started shortly after that CAUV seasonal summer job when she was offered a permanent position as the deputy auditor and administrator of CAUV in the Franklin County auditor’s office. The job-offer call came to her parents’ house.

“I wasn’t home. My mom (Sandy) answered the phone and she told them I’d start on Monday,” she said, with a laugh.

That position eventually led her to an expanded real estate tax appraisal position in Union County, then as administrator of the real estate assessment department in the Delaware County auditor’s office, where she worked for 21 years.

Tennant has served on several committees and task forces for the International Association of Assessing Officers and served on Ohio Farm Bureau’s Policy Development Committee on the Property Taxes and Rights subcommittee in 2023.

She started her new role with the Ohio Department of Taxation in March.

“The addition of Kelly to our team brings a subject matter expert on the duties of county auditors,” said Patricia Harris, Ohio Tax Commissioner. “Her years of experience doing mass appraisal provides the department more insight in working with Ohio’s 88 auditors.”

It is a role she has been preparing for all of her professional life. And as CAUV appraisals have increased, it has been particularly challenging.

“A lot of taxpayers get mad at county auditors, but we have great county auditors who are working within the parameters of the law,” she said. “I would like to assure farmers that with CAUV as part of the Ohio Constitution, they can count on receiving the maximum amount of tax savings that the law allows.”

Tennant has only been on the job for a few months, but has plans to “leverage technology to improve efficiencies and ensure all appraisals are fair and equitable” for everyone – farmers, residents and businesses.

“These are unprecedented times,” she said. “This is real money.”

Tennant is enthusiastic about engaging with her office’s Ag Advisory Committee, of which Ohio Farm Bureau Policy Counsel Leah Curtis is a member.

She owes that farm kid who has spent “30 years in the trenches” working on tax appraisals and assessments everything she has in her current job. For the whole ag community she wants to “do it right.

“I love to study the full market. I’m passionate about appraisals and CAUV is part of that, and I’m passionate about agriculture,” she said. “It’s who I am. It’s built in me.”

Putting protections in place

As executive administrator of the Division of Tax Equalization, which oversees CAUV, Kelly Tennant wants to remind farmers of a sometimes overlooked business tool for their operations.

“Sign up for the Agricultural District Program,” she said. “It provides important safeguards.”
According to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, an agricultural district provides protection for farmers from nuisance lawsuits, defers expensive development assessments until the land is changed to a non-agriculture use, and offers state scrutiny of local eminent domain acquisitions in certain cases.

Generally, any agricultural land designated as an agricultural district must meet two criteria. First, the land must be devoted exclusively to agricultural production, or devoted to and qualified for payments or other compensation under a federal land retirement or conservation program. Second, the land must either be 10 acres or more in size or produce an average yearly gross income of at least $2,500 during a three-year period.

This status needs to be renewed every five years. Updated application forms are also available at county auditor offices. CAUV is considered a companion law that provides relief on farmland property taxes.

Contact your local county auditor’s office for more information about the agricultural district and CAUV programs.