PRINCE EDWARD – It's early in the process, but the County is taking a look at reassessment.

Reassessment, which occurs once every six years in Prince Edward, establishes the value of real estate properties, an important (and state mandated) cog in a locality's tax system that establishes the value of the property to be taxed.

Last month, County supervisors issued a request for proposals for firms to provide the services and tapped a committee to offer some instructions (recommendations would first go to the full board of supervisors) they may wish to provide to the reassessment firm. That committee included Leigh District Supervisor Don Gantt as chairman, and committee members (supervisor) Howard Simpson, citizen appointee Marshall Thackston, and Commissioner of Revenue Beverly Booth.

The reassessment is a projected 18-month process; the County is expected to select a firm in the spring of 2013 in order for the process to be completed by December 31, 2014.

A memo in the board's packet referencing the 2009 letter from the Board of Equalization cited an issue from the previous reassessment-the practice of placing a home site on an unimproved parcel. (It was noted that the committee was informed that approximately 1,085 parcels not located in Town limits or a subdivision had a home site placed on the parcel.)

“…What it amounts to is this: if you had multiple parcels on your farm or if your house was here, the road came through (and) divided it and you had a parcel on the other side,” Gantt said. “What was happening was when they went through there, they were taxing each parcel as if they had a house site on it. And they strongly objected to that.”

County Administrator Wade Bartlett added that they were told to do that by the previous commissioner of revenue “so it wasn't something that the assessment company did on their own. They were given that instruction before.”

Gantt noted that the committee is recommending that it be eliminated.

“If there's a subdivision out there, we would expect this to stay with the subdivision. We would expect it to stay in town. But out in the county, wanted to do away with it. What this'll do is reduce the tax burden on our citizens by about $61,204,” he said.

In other assessment news, real estate values in the county seem to be holding their own. A summary in the board packet cited, “The Commissioner of Revenue updated the committee on the current sales ratio which for 2012 is 100 and for 2011 it was 95.4 percent. The sale ratio is calculated by the state and compares the tax assessment to the actual sales price of property.”

So 100 percent, the memo cited, “…means the sales price matches the tax assessment, while a ratio of less than 100 percent means the tax assessment is less than the sales price.”

Home values, Gantt reported, have gone up “and that was a very reassuring thing.”

Gantt also noted that they talked about specific valuation policies and the need of the County and the board of equalization to understand the policies used by the assessment firm.

“And that means…everybody knows the rules going into it,” Gantt said. “They know exactly what the assessment firm's looking at-nobody is sliding anything in that they don't know about it.”

Bartlett summed that they would instruct whatever firm is selected (the board had previously agreed to issue a request for proposals) that they do not place home sites on unimproved parcels that are located in the town limits or in a subdivision. Those in a platted subdivision would be a home site. All of the other issues would have to wait until after the firm is selected.

“…It's not to instruct the firm how to make the assessment, 'cause that's not our job. It's to understand the polices that they will use so then we can inform the citizens and we can inform the board of equalization,” Bartlett commented. “So when the citizens go to the board, they will know if those policies were adhered to.”

The assessor, it was also cited in the discussion, have to follow the guidelines of the Virginia Department of Taxation.

The board approved a motion that they only place home sites on unimproved parcels that are either in the town limits or a subdivision, allow the committee to meet with the selected reassessment firm to discuss specific valuation policies and make recommendations to the board of supervisors.