Whenever any state school, granted, tide, or other public lands of the state shall have been charged with local improvement assessments under any local improvement assessment district in any incorporated city, town, irrigation, diking, drainage, port, weed, or pest district, or any other district now authorized by law to levy assessments against lands of the state, where such assessments are required under existing statutes to be returned to the fund of the state treasury from which the assessments were originally paid, the department may, and is hereby authorized, to sell such lands for their appraised valuation without regard to such assessments, anything to the contrary in the existing statutes notwithstanding. However, nothing in this section shall be construed to alter in any way any existing statute providing for the method of procedure in levying assessments against lands of the state in any of such local improvement assessment districts.