County approves corrections to tax rolls on Luckett’s suggestion
Published 8:49 am Tuesday, February 2, 2016
The Warren County Board of Supervisors on Monday approved a number of requests from County Tax Assessor Ben Luckett to correct the county’s tax rolls.
Many of the errors, Luckett said, occurred in 2014 and caused incorrect tax bills to go out for 2015.
Correcting these errors led to an increase in the assessed value of real property in the amount of $954,674. The majority of that amount comes from an error in the valuation of Ergon property in the amount of $936,180.
Luckett said what appears to have happened is a Ergon was granted a tax exemption on a project that is not yet complete.
“Ergon actually contacted us and told us about the error,” Luckett said.
The county also approved reductions in real property of $124,206 and personal property of $165,519, as well as Homestead Exemption-related reductions of $10,810 and increases totaling $3,195.
Luckett said most of the errors could be attributed to data entry mistakes.
Also Monday morning, the board approved a four-year engineering plan at its meeting Monday morning.
Brian Robbins of Stantec Engineering said the plan provides a tool for county supervisors to use when deciding the best use of money in order to protect the safety and welfare of county taxpayers.
“The plan includes a lot of history in it, as well as ongoing projects — what’s the status of those, how much they were when they bid them out,” Robbins said. “It’s a guideline of projects and money from state aid and how they need to utilize that to keep bridges and roads in good condition.”
The county has contracted with Stantec Engineering to provide engineering services for the county. Stantec employee John McKee has been named county engineer.
Robbins heads Stantec’s Vicksburg office. He said the county would approve paving as funds allow.
“They hire us to look at their roads and we will evaluate them and make recommendations,” he said. “Warren County keeps its roads in very good condition. All roads deteriorate over time, but they keep them up as best they can as funding allows.”