County signs up 2 private appraisers

Published 12:01 pm Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A pair of private appraisers for Warren County’s homes, businesses and personal property should not drive taxpayers to fear opening mail in December, Tax Assessor Angela Brown said Monday as the Board of Supervisors approved offers to farm out appraisals as officials play catch-up with state-mandated updates.

“I want the public to understand,” Brown said during a last-moment brainstorm with the board before discussions on how privately managed appraisals would affect the county’s bottom line in 2012-13. “We don’t reappraise each property. We review. So, there’s a difference. We just have to physically go out and review each property to see if there’s been any changes.”

The board hired Louisville-based Wes Kight and Associates LLC to appraise homes and land in Vicksburg and Warren County for three years in a deal costing $442,000 — a more costly pact than the $520,000 over four years offered in January. Supervisors spurned that and a separate offer to appraise personal property in favor of a competitive process, a decision made just weeks after five veteran staffers retired, quit or were fired following Brown’s election.

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By law, 25 percent of a county’s parcels must be reappraised to achieve an updated roll in four years. Indexes plugged into formulas to calculate property values have used a $105,000 baseline, lower than the $147,000 index suggested by the Mississippi Department of Revenue for counties in the southern half of the state with sufficient new construction. Higher indexes mean higher values when counties change millage rates accordingly. In 2005, Warren County was given until 2007 to update it, DOR has said. The county’s land rolls have been approved by the agency each year since then, despite the same index.

In the past, property values have risen near areas of new commercial construction, such as casinos, hotels and retail development. When homeowners install a swimming pool or build a backyard gazebo, taxes generally go up to reflect it. When pressed by District 1 Supervisor John Arnold on whether new indexes will push tax bills higher, Brown hedged.

“I can’t tell you there will not be any increase,” she said. “But, that’s not our plan. Now, if we come to your house and you’ve made an addition, we’re gonna have to pick it up.”

For calculating the worth of personal property, which deals with assets not fixed to the land, such as business inventories, it’ll be Brandon-based Statewide Appraisal Services Inc. Its bid was $72,000 for two years, or $8,000 more than pitched to the board in January. Using the two firms will cost the county an extra $67,217.88 in the fiscal 2013 budget, based on calculations by County Administrator John Smith that assume three mapping positions filled.

Hires there are a must, Smith said, for new aerial photographs and digital maps to be a success. Wilmington, N.C.-based Atlas Geographic won a $220,592 contract Feb. 6 to perform the decennial work — a unanimous vote not formally rescinded, but modified with a separate $6,250 contract approved Monday to ensure maps are drawn. “It’s all tied in,” Smith said.

The 2011-12 budget was adopted Sept. 6, before Brown was elected Nov. 8 to succeed 25-year incumbent Richard Holland, who retired. The office’s allocation was $321,986, up by $6,300 due to higher mandated retirement contributions from counties.

Appraising real property is contracted out by 53 of the state’s 82 counties, according to the Mississippi Department of Revenue.