With a mostly empty agenda, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners should be in for a short meeting on the evening of Tuesday, March 1.
Ahead of the meeting, however, the Commissioners will interview nominees for the Tourism Development Authority, beginning at 3:30 p.m., and will then appoint one individual to the board near the close of the regular meeting, which begins at 4:30 p.m.
Following a “Good News” announcement about the Sheriff’s Executive Resource Volunteers — who have logged more than 7,895 hours since November 2013 and saved the Sheriff’s Department $166,127 in funding — the commissioners will discuss reappraising property values in Buncombe County.
According to a North Carolina general statute, all local governments must appraise real properties every eight years. The last assessment of real estate property values in the county was completed on Jan. 1, 2013, therefore the county would not be required to complete another appraisal until 2021.
However, the current level of property values for county neighborhoods ranges from 50 to 85 percent of the true market value. This creates an inequity in property tax liabilities for citizens in Buncombe County, reads the resolution, meaning some citizens will have a greater burden of property taxes than they would if the properties were to be updated to 100 percent of the true market value.
This low ratio means the county must move ahead with mandatory reappraisal, according to the State statute, allowing the county to better manage the appraised values as close to true market value as possible and to maintain fair and equitable tax burdens for all citizens.
Possible pros listed in favor of the reappraisal include bringing all the real estate value to 100 percent of the true market value; allowing the county, municipalities, fire departments and school tax districts to better manage tax values and yearly tax rates; and the annual tax bills for citizens normally stay at the same amount, unless improvements are made to their homes.
On the other hand, citizens may have concerns regarding their property tax amounts, and, if the county should decide not to advance the reappraisal date, the North Carolina Department of Revenue would decide when the reassessment would take place.
The $158,600 that it would take to reappraise property values in 2017 has already been requested for the 2016/2017 fiscal year’s budget, which will be finalized and approved in June and July.
The meeting will take place Tuesday, March 1, at 4:30 p.m., on the third floor of the county building at 200 College St. To look over the full agenda, click here.
LOL, let’s triple the tax bills now lulz. And when the market crashed, did the tax values come down? Of course not. Maybe they themselves need to kick people out of their homes just to experience a dose of reality. The cowards will make sure their minions in the sheriffs dept will do the dirty work for them though.
“when the market crashed, did the tax values come down? Of course not.”
Well, you could always look at buncombetax.org because that’s… public data. Just checking my street, most houses’ assessed value went down in the 2013 reassessment, which was the first one post-crash. (Yes, the tax rate per assessed dollar went up, but you weren’t talking about that.)
The county-assessed values at the peak of the bubble — again, just on my street — were still a lot lower than the market values. But maybe do the work county-wide and find out the whole picture yourself lulz LOL!!1!ELEVEN
Hey Benton, instead of being just a mouthpiece for the status quo and nothing more than an announcer, why don’t you do some critical investigating like asking why 6 billion in property in the county is exempt??? Or why in 2013, Greene demanded a 15 percent increase in taxes because the market values were “down”. Maybe start doing something like making these buffoons and elitist who are glorified thieves accountable for the hundreds of millions they steal and don’t directly answer for for it? You might actually see how corrupt and full of fraud and waste it is. And inform an increasingly dumb population of just how much of their money is being taken from them for absolutely nothing in return.
If this current reappraisal means bring up the values of certain areas, certainly it means across the board increases. So all we really get is higher taxes and the same so called “inequity” does it not? You don’t honestly think that the neighborhoods deemed as being taxed at market values will escape tax increases do you?