Some Whitfield homeowners face average 15% hike in assessments; taxes may not go up that much

Published 8:00 pm Tuesday, June 14, 2022

The economy and the real estate market, both nationally and locally, have been “going crazy” the last few years, said Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jevin Jensen.

“It’s that time of year, so we wanted to see where things are going with this crazy economy and everything and where we are situated,” Jensen said.

He said that was why commissioners asked Whitfield County Chief Appraiser Ashley O’Donald to speak to them at their meeting Monday night. O’Donald works for the county Board of Assessors to set property assessments for property tax purposes.

“This is definitely not everyone’s favorite topic,” O’Donald said.

O’Donald agreed that “crazy” is a good term for what has been going on with the economy and the real estate market.

“We are in a historic real estate market as far as what properties are being bought and sold for,” he said “It was everyone’s expectation that sales would begin to slow down during the (COVID-19) pandemic, but the exact opposite happened.”

Data provided by O’Donald showed that roughly 1,200 existing homes were sold last year in Whitfield County at an average price of approximately $225,000.

Assessments are based on the previous year’s data.

“The Board of Assessors will be voting on Wednesday (at 8:30 a.m.) to finalize 2022 assessments,” O’Donald said. “Those range from on average a 15% increase for residential properties up to 25%. It also includes a 15% increase on all commercial and industrial properties.”

He said his goal is to get assessments in the mail by June 24. They will certainly be mailed by the end of the month, which is the state deadline.

Property owners will then have a 45-day period to appeal their assessments.

“We try to make appeals as easy as possible,” he said.

After the assessments are mailed, there will be a link on the assessors’ website, whitfieldassessor.com, where people can schedule an appeal. There will also be information on the assessments on how to call to schedule an appeal.

Jensen said a higher assessment doesn’t necessarily mean a property owner will pay a higher tax.

“You are not in charge of tax rates,” he said. “We aren’t in charge of assessments.”

He said when the commissioners set the property tax rate in August they could set it at a rate that rolls back any increase in revenue from higher assessments. He said if everyone’s assessment goes up at a fairly standard rate they would get a fairly even tax cut.

“But it gets tricky if most people go up 2% or 3% and a few people go up 50%,” he said.

Jensen and O’Donald noted the Board of Assessors and the tax assessor’s office are a bit unusual. The assessors are appointed by the Board of Commissioners, and the county funds the office. But they answer largely to the state.

“We appoint assessors to six-year terms,” Jensen said. “Those are fairly lengthy terms because of all the training and testing and certifications they have to get.”

O’Donald said new assessors have to get 100 hours of training in their first two years.

“They don’t report back to us,” Jensen said. “We don’t tell them what to do. We don’t tell you what to do. You are audited by the state and have state regulations you have to meet. We aren’t trying to pass the buck. That’s just the way Georgia is set up.”

O’Donald said the Board of Assessors is tasked with setting all values of property, both taxable and exempt in the county, as well as approving all exemptions, whether that be the homestead exemption, agricultural exemptions, historic exemptions, churches, schools, government buildings and those sorts of things.

“Our office and the Board of Assessors have two oversight agencies at the state level,” he said. “Those two agencies are the Department of Audits, which conducts an annual sales ratio study, and the Department of Revenue, which provides education for assessors and assessors’ office staff. Plus, they do a three-year digest review. It’s called a digest review, but it’s more comprehensive than that. It reviews every single thing that office does in each county.’

The annual sales ratio study compares real estate sales prices to market values calculated by assessors to measure the overall accuracy of their appraisals.

“We’ve been very conservative with evaluations over the past few years,” said O’Donald. “Due to that, our 2021 ratio study for the Department of Audits is going to be low. Most likely, my estimate after seeing the preliminary numbers, we are going to have some deficiencies that will make it into the Department of Revenue’s digest. Everything in the assessors’ world is a year behind. The ratio study is coming out any day now, probably by the end of the month, maybe by the end of July. We will have to react to that, make changes, fix things for our next Department of Revenue three-year review, which will be in 2024.”