County readies for property reassessments
By Ruth Marlow
It’s almost time for the quadrennial reassessment of real property values in the county, a process that county officials say they want to ensure is done fairly, accurately, and efficiently and with a consistency of values throughout the county.
The reassessments could play a role in determining whether the county raises or lowers its real estate tax rate, officials said.
?gWhen values increased for property, we cut the tax rate to make it relatively neutral, or as revenue neutral as we can,” Board of Supervisors Chairman John Staelin (D-Millwood/Pine Grove) said. “The opposite could occur if values go down.”
?gThe goal is to make sure that the actual tax bill that goes out isn’t dramatically different than it was before,” Staelin emphasized. “In the end, the taxpayer should be paying about the same.”
The Commissioner of the Revenue’s office has received calls from residents asking that their assessments be lowered, Commissioner Warren Arthur said. That’s because when values were set during the last reassessment in 2006, the real estate market was booming, which drove assessments upward, he noted.
But his office cannot unilaterally lower or raise the values, he added, reminding they must be based on an independent analysis done by a firm hired to review the county’ s approximately 9,000 parcels of real estate, which include residential and commercial properties a well as raw land.
As an initial step in the upcoming reassessment process, county supervisors Monday reviewed concerns voiced in past years by property owners who asked the county’ s Board of Equalization to lower what they contended were inflated values assigned their properties.
For example, Equalization Board Chairman Joe Blatz said, residents complained about the $125,000 value assigned for a dwelling unit right on lots, even for tiny lots in Millwood and Berryville, for example. They also were unhappy about what they considered “abrupt value changes as parcel size rose,” for example, 49 acres at $10,000 per acre compared with 51 acres at $7,500 per acre, according to Blatz’s report on the 2006 assessment process.
The board is appointed by the circuit court to serve as the second level to which residents can appeal their assessments. The first appeal can be made directly to the firm that assigned the property value, Arthur said.
Also, Supervisor Barbara Byrd (I-Russell) said that some residents had complained that they thought their properties were not adequately inspected during the 2006 process, receiving only a cursory glance during a drive-by review.
During the meeting, supervisors also discussed values assigned to conservation easements. State law requires raw land in easement to be assessed based on its land-use value, which is set by the revenue commissioner’s office, Staelin noted.
?gObviously, when you give up development, you affect the value of the property,” Staelin said.
Contact the reporter at rmarlow@timespapers.com