Delaware State News
DOVER — Owners of more than 38,000 of Kent County’s 90,000 taxable parcels will soon receive revised assessments of their property value.
Assessment Supervisor Lou Cox said that 48 percent of the affected parcels will see a loss in value — a total decrease of $57.4 million.
The other 52 percent will see a gain in value — a total increase of $53.4 million, for a net loss of $3.9 million, Mr. Cox said.
The revised property values are the culmination of more than five years of work by the Board of Assessment to make the department’s old software, called Microsolve, compatible with the rest of the county’s tax database.
"We had a compatibility problem from the beginning," said Mr. Cox, "Meanwhile, people are building houses, tearing down houses, making changes. It would have been a major catastrophe for the Board of Assessment to just stop working."
The Board of Assessment decided in late 2003 to install new software, called Appraisal Plus, which is compatible with software in other county departments.
The notices are being sent to the more than 38,000 parcels that became a part of Kent County in the past 8 1/2 years while Mr. Cox’s office struggled with compatibility issues,
A letter being sent with the assessment notices reads, in part: "The sole purpose of revising these assessments has been to restore uniformity, equity and integrity to Kent County’s property assessment roll, and to achieve thereby a fair distribution of the county’s tax burden among all taxpayers."
The letters are expected to go out Monday or Tuesday, said Mr. Cox,
"This is the final step of that process, Taxpayers weren’t aware of this. It’s totally an internal matter, and has nothing to do with what’s going on out there in the real world," he said.
Cox said the majority of the assessment changes involve gains or losses of a very small magnitude.
Even a more substantial increase in value, such as $1,000, translates into roughly $15 more in property taxes, he said.
Mr. Cox is retiring June 30, but will return to his office the next day as a contract employee.
Sheila Ross, who’s been a licensed appraiser in Cox’s office for the past five years, was among the many those who worked late nights moving data from the old software to the new.
"I’m kind of excited that we’re finally going to have some decent, uniform data," she said.
