Minutes 06-15-2021 Virtual Business meeting

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19 If the Board chooses to extend the date of the BOER's adjournment, the recommendation of the Tax Office is to extend the BOER's adjournment date to no later than September 1, 2021 by publishing the notice(s) required by statute. This date will allow additional time for property owners to appeal their value and at the same time minimize the impacts to the County as much as possible. Extending the formal appeals period to September 1 creates impacts for the County that should be considered. Doing so will result in increased costs to the County. It may result in impacts to the Finance and Administrative Services Department's estimated tax revenues. An extension may also result in appeals that are based on issues that cannot be considered, such as an increase in a tax bill overall. Currently the Tax Office has received 1,777 appeals. Of those, 1,679 are informal and 98 are formal appeals. Decision notices for many of the informal appeals were mailed on May 5, 2021 and more notices were mailed on May 28, 2021. A chart is provided that details the number of appeals that have been submitted per week. The chart shows that the filing of appeals peaked at the end of April, reflecting that the greatest surge of appeal submission has passed. The Tax Office has contracted with the firm that provided commercial values for the revaluation to defend those values for commercial appeals through the original ending date of June 30, 2021. Currently 239 commercial appeals have been received. If the formal appeals period is extended until September 1, commercial appeals submitted after June 30 will not be defended by the firm under contract, which could result in unplanned loss of value as a result of the additional appeals. Board of Equalization and Review members are paid for the hearings they attend. For each meeting there are three members present, including one Chair, totaling a cost of$250 per hearing. The funding level requested by the Tax Office in the FY 2021-22budget did not take into consideration the possibility of additional hearings, which could cost the County as much as an additional $6,000. Should the Board choose to extend the formal appeals period, which would be achieved by extending the adjournment of the BOER, an extension may be accomplished by complying with the notice requirements for later adjournment described in N.C.G.S. 105-322(f): publishing notice at least once in the newspaper(s) in which the first notice was published. The publication must be prior to the date first announced for adjournment. Nancy Freeman, Tax Administrator, reviewed the background information for the item. Commissioner Greene referred to the proposition of hiring an outside party to defend against the appeals, and asked if more information could be provided and if that is customary. Nancy Freeman said the appeals that would be defended would be commercial. She said the County had a contract with the company CCA, who handled commercial values for the revaluation. She said they would also be the ones used to defend those values for appeals that come in for commercial properties. She said this is customary when there is a company that handles commercial properties that they would also handle the appeals part of the process. Commissioner Greene clarified that this would only be for commercial properties. Nancy Freeman said that is correct, and this company would only handle commercial appeals, no residential appeals. Chair Price said the issue that brought this forward was the residential properties. She asked if there will there be issues for commercial properties.