NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors denied Monday an appeal by the owners of Merit Health Natchez to reduce the property’s tax assessment by nearly two-thirds.

Tax Assessor Reynolds Atkins had previously assessed the value of the real property at the former Natchez Regional Medical Center at $21,059,659 and the land at $2,940,300.

Atkins said he had a second assessment — completed by an independent contractor before the hospital was sold to its new owners last year — that valued the total property at $24 million.

But Jenna Reyes, who works with Property Valuation Services and represented Merit Health Natchez’s parent company, Community Health Services, at the tax assessment protest hearing, said her company had determined the property should only be valued at $7 million.

Referencing an arrangement the county made with the buyers to pre-pay $8 million in taxes in addition to the $10 million sales price in order to cover the bankrupt hospital’s debts and closing costs, Supervisor Mike Lazarus said he saw the tax protest as “a deal they are now wanting to go back on.”

“They agreed to pre-pay the taxes at $8 million knowing the hospital was valued at $24 million,” he said. “Now they have the deal of the century and they are trying to go back on it. When you have a deal with me, you have a deal.”

Reyes said the determination was made based in part on the $10 million sale price the hospital went for in October 2014.

“This hospital — with no disrespect to the former management — is in pretty bad shape. You can tell that with the renovations that are already existing,” Reyes said.

“It is on a hill that limits how it can expand except moving in that parking lot … And we suggest this is near the end of its useful life. The (hospital’s owners) has, from their eyes, spent $10 million, so why should be it considered worth more?”

Lazarus countered that the buyers “got the hospital for nothing” because no one else wanted to come to Natchez and compete with the other hospital in town, then Natchez Community Hospital — which has since become a second campus for Merit Health Natchez.

When Reyes pointed out the hospital is doing millions in renovations to the property, board attorney Scott Slover countered that the renovations are because the owners plan to conglomerate the two Natchez hospitals into a single unit.

“It has nothing to do with the value,” he said.

When the representatives from Property Valuation Services brought up ways the facility is functionally limited because of its old design, Lazarus objected, saying, “The hospital is a building that stands there, is brick and concrete, and just because they have changed the way hospitals operate doesn’t change the value of the building itself.”

Atkins said his conclusions about the property’s value included that it was on 23 acres of land at the most traveled intersection in the county and the buildings are sound.

Supervisor Angela Hutchins made a motion to back Atkins’ assessment, which Lazarus seconded.

The board delayed a decision on the assessment of the hospital’s taxable equipment, however, so the involved parties could seek clarification about whether or not software — which is tax exempt — had been included in the assessment.

The board likewise deferred any action on the Merit Health Natchez—Community Campus assessment at Reyes’ request for more time to evaluate it. Reyes indicated the company was seeking a lower assessment for the Community property as well.