NATCHEZ — The property assessments are in — and they’re high.

Tuesday morning Adams County Tax Assessor Reynolds Atkins presented the Adams County Board of Supervisors with a summary of the 2009 tax roll and asked the supervisors to lower the millage they collect by seven mils.

Due to the property tax reassessments, this year’s tax roll contains $43 million more in assessed property value than the previous year’s assessment.

The new assessments have caused the value of houses and buildings in Adams County to rise approximately 22 percent, Atkins said.

And that reassessment has had an enormous impact on the millage.

Atkins said the new state-mandated assessments have caused the value of one mil to go from approximately $185,000 to approximately $234,000.

Since last August when Atkins began reassessing the 18,000 pieces of property in Adams County he has been calling for the Adams County Board of Supervisors, City of Natchez and Natchez-Adams School Board all to lower the millage they collect.

“Not doing so would be a disservice to the taxpayers,” Atkins said.

Atkins said if all three boards lower their millage rates, each entity can — even at a lower millage rate — still collect the same amount of tax dollars they’ve collected in previous years without increasing the bottom line dollar amount taxpayers would owe.

“It would go a long way to offsetting their increases and help them out,” Atkins said.

While the board took no action on lowering the millage, board members voiced support for Atkins’ plan.

“I feel like the board is going to work with you on this,” Supervisor S.E. “Spanky” Felter said. “We have to do something.”

Starting today county residents will have an opportunity to contest their assessments.

From today until July 24 residents can view the tax roll and contest the reassessed values of their property.

The reassessment only assesses houses and buildings, not land.

Atkins said the supervisors won’t likely take any official action on lowing the millage until at least Aug. 3, at which point residents who had issues with the reassessments and could not achieve satisfaction with Atkins, will have a chance to present their opinions to the board.

And while the supervisors have voiced support in lowering the millage, the aldermen and school board also have yet to take action on the issue.

While school board officials have said they would likely lower the millage to assist taxpayers, city officials said current budget issues could influence whether or not they’ll lower their millage.

“(All parties) have to do something, this is going to have a huge impact on almost every person in the county,” Atkins said.

While property values are reassessed every four years, changes from the Mississippi State Tax Commission that altered the formula that determined property values were changed and resulted in the properties being reassessed at a higher dollar value.

And while in the past Atkins said he was able to assess houses at 80 percent of their true value, their cost to build, he’s now mandated by the commission to assesses houses at least 90 percent of their true value, with 100 percent being the ultimate goal.