State law requires every county to revalue properties at least once every 8 years. But more and more counties are accelerating that timeline. Johnston is the latest county to accelerate their timeline.
In a unanimous vote on Monday, County Commissioners agreed to a request by County Manager Rick Hester to conduct the next property revaluation in 6 years instead of 8 years, meaning the next revaluation will occur in the year 2025. Afterwards, revaluations will take place once every 4 years.
“The main reason for my recommendation was to hopefully lessen the impact of the revaluation process to property owners – especially with us being such a high-growth County,” Hester told WTSB.
Tax Administrator Jocelyn Andrews added, “The purpose of revaluation is to ensure property values accurately reflect their market value so the property tax burden is spread equitably among all taxpayers. In a longer revaluation cycle, taxpayers may pay tax on values more or less than the market value for an extended period of time.”
The decision comes just one month after taxpayers received notification of their 2019 property revaluations, the first countywide appraisal of properties since 2011. The average value jumped 24 percent this year, with the largest increases in land and home values in the Clayton, Archer Lodge, Cleveland, Wilson’s Mills, Wilders, Pleasant Grove and Elevation communities. Clayton saw the largest average increase of 32.71%.
In 2011, tax values increased an average of 14.16 percent over 2003 property values.
Andrews said as of January 31, 2019 the current revaluation has cost approximately $1.6 million.
As of Monday, 2,460 people have appealed the new 2019 values. A total of 1,224 appeal hearings have taken place, Andrews said. 562 other hearings have been scheduled but not yet heard. Value determinations are not made at the time of the informal hearings. Decisions on property values that were appealed will be announced in mid-March.
