Individual property owners have complained of a burned-out, dilapidated house being valued at $91,000 and of an abandoned school that recently sold for $100,000 turning up with a new $2.5 million valuation. Now the city of Wilson, which is able to evaluate the reappraisals using its sophisticated Geographic Information Systems mapping software, has looked at the revaluations and is turning away befuddled.
City officials cited this example of inexplicable changes in value: Property at the four corners of Nash Street and Ward Boulevard varied by 155 percent. Rite Aid property increased 103 percent; Walgreens property increased 105 percent; McDonald's restaurant increased by 16 percent; and Centura Village decreased by 50 percent.
While the overall increase in property valuations rose 20 percent over the past eight years, the variations were wildly inconsistent. Some properties increased 300 percent in value while others decreased 80 percent in value. City Council members and city staff were confounded by the contradictions and inconsistencies in the revaluations.
Even the average increase in values was disappointing to the city. The previous revaluation saw values increase by 30 percent overall. An increase of 20 percent over eight years is only 2.5 percent per year -- an increase that makes Wilson County real estate a worse investment than a certificate of deposit or a money market account and that falls below the long-term rate of inflation.
City officials say the disappointingly low increase in tax values could delay city projects, but the city is powerless to do anything about the revaluations. Wilson County hires the revaluation company and collects taxes for the city.
City officials, however, can only raise revenues by increasing the tax burden, regardless of whether the revaluation is fair.
Of greater concern to taxpayers might be the implication that tax fairness is being lost in a failed revaluation. While there are always winners and losers in revaluations, the disparities in this revaluation suggest that property taxes will not be based on fair and realistic data, resulting in an unjustifiable shift in tax burden.
The only way to correct an errant property revaluation is to do a make-over, which will cost upward of $1 million. That's the price of not doing it right, with proven, experienced, competent appraisers, the first time.