Archived Story
County tax assessment up $3.8M
Published 12:06am Wednesday, July 4, 2012NATCHEZ — Adams County’s assessed tax value is projected to increase approximately $3.8 million this year.
And even if residents didn’t get a notice this year that their property had been reappraised, the process isn’t over.
The Adams County Board of Supervisors voted to receive approved tax rolls from County Tax Assessor Reynolds Atkins at its meeting Monday, rolls that increased $3,819,369 over last year.
The cause of the assessment increase is primarily due to reassessment, something the state requires every four years, Atkins said.
“(The reappraisal) has to be done by 2013, and I am doing it over a two-year span,” Atkins said. “I do all my appraisals myself, and I can’t look at all 20,000 parcels (of land) in one year.”
The county has seen a decrease in assessed value over the span of the last five to seven years due to the loss of industry, but Atkins said this year’s increase was primarily based on natural growth with new houses being built.
“I have to ride around and look at every piece of property, and if there is any kind of improvement to the bare land, it changes (the assessment),” he said.
The assessment does not yet reflect any changes made by local industries that have announced or started capital improvements in the last year, Atkins said. Those assessments won’t come on the rolls until construction is completed.
“I don’t make any change on any property until it is completely finished,” he said. “If a person builds a new house and they don’t move in until Jan. 7, I take it over to the next year.”
Atkins said next year’s assessment should see similar increases. More of the assessments done this year were in the city than in the rural parts of the county, he said.
The assessments the supervisors accepted are not final, and Atkins said that between July 18 and 31, residents will be able to go to his office and object to their assessed property value. If he is not able to resolve the issue with them, Atkins said residents would be able to lodge a complaint with the supervisors the first week of August.
What the supervisors were given Monday was a simple tax roll.
“That is just an indication of what they are going to get so they can set their budgets,” Atkins said.
Chancery Clerk Tommy O’Beirne said Monday the increase in assessments would give the supervisors approximately $236,000 to work with when they set budgets this year.
