Assessors won’t know if state will approve this year’s tax digest until appeals finish rolling in

ELIZABETH CRUMBLY

General manager

Ecrumbly@calhountimes.com

Gordon County Tax Assessors won’t know which digest the county will use this year until after the deadline for submission of property tax appeals has passed in September.

If the state does not approve this year’s digest:

In the event the state disapproves the digest from this year’s assessments, it will happen based on a twofold system, Chief Tax Assessor Walters said. If the county receives appeals that total five per-cent of the total number of assessments and also if the amount of parcels appealed exceeds five percent of the digest itself, the state may not approve the digest.

As of Thursday morning, Walters said the tax assessor’s office had received 2,363 appeals. This number is well over the 1,300 mark — five percent of Gordon County’s 26,000 total parcels.

“We understand that some of these values are out of line, and we are reviewing those,” Walters said. He encouraged residents to drop by the assessors’ office simply to gain an understanding of how their parcels were assessed.

In the event the state does not accept the digest based on the county’s most recent assessment, which was part of the 100 percent reevaluation performed by Atlanta-based McCormick and Associ-ates, another digest will be substituted.

If the current digest was is not accepted, the board of commissioners can petition a superior court judge to allow the county tax commissioner to send out 2009 bills based on digest property values from another year. The court could also move to allow the county to use this year’s digest, less the parcels that have been appealed, according to Board of Commissioners Chairman Alvin Long.

Those who have appealed their most recent property assessments will receive bills for 85 percent of what they owe based on this year’s digest, he said.

Once this year’s appeals make their way through the system and a digest based on this year’s as-sessments can be used, these property owners will receive bills for the difference in what they owe, Walters said. It may be into next year before those bills go out, he said.

Some property value adjustments have already been made, he explained, and others are being reviewed to determine if they need adjustments. Property owners will receive a 21-day notice if their 2009 property value has been changed, but it will be September before those go out.

If the state approves this year’s digest:

If enough of the appeals make their way through the system to bring the total number below five prevent of either the total number of assessments or of the digest itself, the state may approve this year’s digest when the county submits it later this year.

Board of Commission Chairman Alvin Long said this year’s digest will be the one the county uses to base its tax bills on, whether it meets approval with the state the first time the county submits it or whether the county must wait to use it until after enough appeals have been adjusted to bring the appeal percentage below five percent.

In the event the state disapproves this year’s digest, Long said he would prefer the county not have to use another digest because this would mean taxpayers would receive multiple tax bills. They would be billed again when enough appeals make their way through the system for this year’s digest to be used.

In order for the superior court to instruct the county to use a digest from a previous year or this year’s digest, less the appealed assessments, the county must prove it is in a state of financial hard-ship, he explained.

The county would have a hard time making that case, Long said, because it is “in good financial condition.” He said the county has enough money to operate until next July.

The city and county school systems, however, are already experiencing financial stress, he ex-plained. The possibility of operating without tax money would force them to either petition the county to ask the superior court to pick a digest that may not be based on current assessments, he said, or to borrow funds from elsewhere in order to operate until the county could use this year’s digest.

Long said the assessors’ office is working hard to sort through the appeals it has received. The deadline for appeals is Sept. 8, he said. The digest must be submitted to the state by Aug. 1 of each year, but Gordon County has an extension until Oct. 15, Walters said.

“We do not intend to take a tax digest down to the state that we know isn’t going to be approved,” he said. He said he anticipates tax bills will be mailed by the end of November or the beginning of December.

For more information regarding property assessments, visit the Gordon County Tax Assessors’ Of-fice in the courthouse annex downtown, call 706-629-6812 or visit www.gordoncounty.org.