Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2020 11:17:49 -0500
From: Tarus BALOG
Subject: Re: Sales Tax Referendum March 3rd
> On Feb 1, 2020, at 10:52 AM, Bill Crawford wrote:
>
> The Democrats on the Chatham Board of Commissioners have recently announced that they are instructing their staff to develop a budget with “no property tax increase” in 2020. This is a cheap election year tactic, belied by their move last year to raise property tax valuations, knowing full well that that and the wave of property reassessments would work together to raise property taxes by an average of near 10% countywide.
I’m a little confused here. According to the Chatham County website[1] the last property tax valuation was in 2017, not 2019. The one before that was in 2009, and while they have been traditionally scheduled every four years, the one in 2013 wasn’t held and state law requires property tax valuations every eight years[2].
So, by law it had to be done in 2017. Are you suggesting that the Board should have broken the law? I’m really not one to see abiding by the law as a political tactic, but perhaps it has become one in this day and age.
-T
[1] https://www.chathamnc.org/government/departments-programs/tax-office/2017-revaluation/2017-revaluation-questions-answers#faq_a34
[2] https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_105/GS_105-286.html
2020-02-03