Last week, Chattooga County Tax Commissioner Joy Hampton released a letter to local media that she had sent to local officials updating them on 2023 property tax collections.  Last year, Chattooga County saw a record number of appeals that slowed down the tax process and extended the tax due date to March of this year.

Hampton said that she wanted local taxing authorities – the commissioner and the board of education – to know that there are still 1206 tax bills that are waiting finalization by the county’s tax assessors.   Also, Hampton said that both the county government and the school board will see less taxes collected. Hampton says that the school system will see $193,939 less and the county government will see $159,692 less in taxes from 2023.

Hampton cautioned the taxing authorities about making premature assumptions concerning the final numbers because of the ongoing tax appeals.

Here is the letter that was sent to Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry and the Chattooga County Board of Education:

Good afternoon,

I promised to keep you apprised of how your numbers were looking as the appeals were worked.  We now have 1206 bills waiting for final numbers, so it’s a good halfway point to see what’s happening to the digest.

As of today, I am showing the projected property tax revenues decreasing by these amounts (actual tax dollars):

Chattooga County School Board -$193,929;

Chattooga County Incorporated/Unincorporated together -$159,692.

It is still too early to make any guesses on where your numbers will wind up; however, they may not decrease by as much as we had originally tried to guess.

At the time the numbers were sent to me from the BOA, many of those under appeal had already had a “chunk” of the value of the land removed.  What I’m seeing is that once the appeal is finalized, part of that “chunk” has been reapplied to the residence.  That is acceptable under the law as long as it does not go over the original assessment value overall. So while the overall appealed numbers are decreasing from the assessments that were received in July from the BOA, they are increasing from the numbers I have currently.  In short, while some properties are decreasing in value from what you based your tax rates on, many of them are actually increasing from what you based your tax rates on.  Normally, the numbers I would send to you all would be those original numbers from the assessments, but it didn’t work out that way this year.

I am curious to see what it all looks like when it’s all said and done, but I do think it will still be several months.  I will keep you all posted as I see changes come through so that you can adjust your budgets accordingly.