Residents urge caution on move from four-year property reassessments to annual or biennial schedule

Montgomery County residents urged the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 27 to carefully weigh costs and staffing challenges before changing the county’s property reassessment schedule from a four-year cycle to an annual or biennial process.

Wayman Pack, who identified himself as a Piney Woods Road resident, said the county should revisit prior presentations showing substantial costs and “pitfalls” of a more frequent reassessment schedule. Pack referenced a Oct. 10, 2023 presentation by the county’s director of management and budget and said the previously quoted estimates were “now more than a year old.” He cited figures from that earlier presentation: a biennial cost “at the end of almost a hundred thousand dollars a year” and an annual cost of about $415,000, and warned that some costs would be ongoing such as salaries, benefits and equipment maintenance.

Pack also warned that a local reassessment office could face hiring difficulties and that a new county department could “have an annualized cost over $500,000,” which he said could create pressure for higher taxes. He cautioned that a falling market could require multiple years of tax-rate increases to maintain revenue and asked whether the county would raise taxes if the state 1% reimbursement were lost.

A second speaker, who identified herself by street address but not name, said that under previous reassessments not every house was physically visited and questioned how the county would select properties for inspection on a more frequent cycle; she recounted perceived errors in prior assessments at nearby properties.

County Administrator Angie Hill told the board that staff had presented options to increase reassessment frequency at a Jan. 13 meeting and that reassessments restore equity by aligning assessed values to market values. She also noted that assessed value and the tax rate together determine taxes owed and that the county has discussed transitioning from a contractor-based reassessment program to an in-house program, which staff said could improve customer service and accountability. Hill said staff will present additional information at an upcoming work session.

Ending: The board held the public hearing to gather input; no vote or policy change on reassessment frequency occurred at the Jan. 27 meeting and staff will return with further information.