VALPARAISO | Employees at the county assessor's office were scrambling Monday to accept property assessment appeals from taxpayers filing by the deadline at day's end.

The office has reportedly processed 464 appeal applications and had another 300 or more waiting Monday with others expected before the end of the business day.

The crush of residential and commercial appeals comes in the wake of widespread complaints over spikes in both assessed values and the subsequent property tax bills.

The assessor's office will begin meeting taxpayers Wednesday to discuss the appeals, said Porter County Assessor John Scott.

If an agreement cannot be reached during those meetings, the case will be heard at a later date by the Porter County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, he said.

Large numbers of appeals were not uncommon in years past when full reassessments were done, Scott said. The recent jump in assessments reflects the impact of the state's new trending process of figuring land values based on sales of comparable properties.

When the appeals first started rolling in last month, the assessor's office said many taxpayers don't understand the assessed values on the current 2008 bills are supposed to reflect the value of the home and/or property in 2006. The current property values will not catch up for another couple of years.

The assessments are now supposed to reflect actual values.

Monday also was the deadline for paying property tax bills, which were supposed to be processed by the county last year. County officials have blamed the delay on software problems in the auditor's and treasurer's offices and on long-standing problems that have resulted in years of inaccurate calculations.

County officials have initiated purchasing a new $355,000 software system to replace a $215,620 system that was the only one in Indiana that failed to win state certification by the Dec. 31 deadline.