The South Dakota Legislature’s task force on agricultural property assessments wants to look at a different way to value land for taxes.

The panel on Tuesday recommended asking 10 to 15 counties to take part in a pilot project.

It’s based on a new report from South Dakota State University’s economics department.

Matthew Elliott showed the task force that assessed values would drop about $6 billion on ag property statewide under the possible changes.

He looked at what happens when the current method of highest and best use is switched to a property’s most-probable use.

Elliott estimated $52 billion of ag property values would be reduced to about $46 billion. Ag land is about half of South Dakota’s total taxable property.

“They’ll run two sets of numbers,” Sen. Larry Tidemann said about the pilot counties.

The Brookings Republican is chairman of the task force.

Tidemann said the pilot counties would still levy taxes using the current method for valuing cropland and non-cropland.

But they also would look at how they could be affected under changes the panel is considering.

Eleven counties don’t have the capability yet to participate in the pilot. South Dakota has 66 counties.

The task force didn’t address how reducing ag assessments would affect taxable values for owner-occupied homes or business properties.

Every county west of the Missouri River would see significant reductions in ag-land assessments under most-probable use, according to Elliott.

Counties east of the Missouri River would split 50-50 in whether their ag values went up or down.

Elliott also looked at basing ag values on actual use of the land. The task force talked about the concept but set it aside.

The Legislature decided 10 years ago to adopt the highest and best use approach for determining ag property’s productivity.

It’s based on eight soil types. The top three are considered cropland soils. The bottom four are non-cropland soils, most often in grasses and pastures. The soil type in the middle can go either way.

The panel agreed Tuesday to move ahead on two bills for the 2019 legislative session.

One addresses an issue that Gov.-elect Kristi Noem and Jim Peterson worked on since 2010 when they were legislators together.

It calls for ag land that’s been in grass for at least 10 years to be rated as non-cropland.

The other bill says SDSU would start providing each county with data and information for classifying soil types.