Real Property director: senior exemptions may rise to 65%; RPS system limitations mean manual processing if adopted

Real Property Director Miranda Bernholz provided an overview of exemption changes under recent state legislation. She said the state now allows senior citizen exemptions up to 65% (the prior local practice capped at 50%), noted widows/widowers exemptions for police officers killed in the line of duty, and described an option for 100% service-connected disability exemptions for veterans as a local option. Bernholz cautioned that the county's RPS system currently handles up to 50% automatically and cannot accommodate higher exemptions without manual calculation and data entry.