It should not have taken until the end of March to find this out via Kerry Hall Singe:
As of Friday, the county had received 35,262 appeals from homeowners and an additional 318 appeals from its second mailing, which included commercial properties, condos and second residential notices.
The county believes more than 15 percent – or nearly 4,000 – of the county’s commercial owners will appeal.
In all, county assessors mailed out notices totaling $99 billion in tax value. They expect that value to drop to $93 billion once appeals are decided.
Recall that the last county budget pegged the total value of all real property in the county at $82.7b. (pg. 121 of the PDF) and that threw off about $693m. in property tax revenue — by far the largest component of the $954m. in county-generated revenue. Accordingly, right now — without a cut in the property tax rate — the county would scoop up about $90m. more in revenue from the tax notices sent out in October.
Look for the Democratic majority on the county commission to move to split the difference and try to keep about $45m. in “new” revenue. That would mean dropping the current rate some — but not all the way to a revenue-neutral rate. For the children.
