TIFTON — As the Tift County government works through property revaluation, the City of Tifton has attempted to ease the concerns of local residents regarding the process.

City officials organized a town hall meeting Saturday, July 13, to inform the community and answer their questions about the ongoing revaluation, drawing enough concerned and frustrated residents that the meeting needed to be relocated from the Tifton Municipal Court to the Tiftarea YMCA.

Accompanied by a handful of city and county staff experienced in the field, such as Hayward Becton, county chief tax appraiser, and Jeff Gibbs, a member of the county board of assessors, Mayor Julie Smith explained that the city would likely be unable to answer all of the community’s questions, but would do their utmost to ensure residents were as well-informed as possible.

Becton laid the groundwork for the situation by explaining that the county had received a letter a few years prior from the state Department of Revenue informing them that they had fallen out of the established sales ratio in several categories, with the current values for the county’s Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial Median Ratios, among others, sitting below the allowed minimum ratios.

He provided those in attendance with a graph showing the increase in value of PT-61s and deeds, recorded by the clerk of court office, belonging to parcels with residential properties on them, suspecting this was a contributor to the county’s ratios bottoming out.

The letter mandated that the county undergo a revaluation process of its over 19,000 parcels, Becton reported, which began in 2022 with the county hiring an external company to handle the revaluation.

Appraisers from the company reviewed each and every parcel and compared them to existing county records, analyzed sales data from the clerk of court office, and used this data to identify a new “per square foot” cost for use in a formula that would determine the new values of all properties in the county.

Residents were doubtful of the ins and outs of this process, however. Greg Nielsen claimed his property could not have been reappraised, as it was impossible to see from the road, while Jade Kelly requested that the formula being used be provided to the community.

Becton explained that the appraisers would have taken existing data on Nielsen’s property and modified it with the new “per square foot” cost and formula to determine the new value, while he offered to go into detail on the formula with Kelly at the county tax assessor’s office at a later time, which the audience protested. Smith assured them in response that they would make as much information as possible available to residents when they could.

She provided information on her own home’s assessment, showing that it has impacted her as much as anyone else in the county and assuring the crowd that the city and county governments are working to find an acceptable solution for everyone.

Vince Watkins argued that state law required properties to be at fair market value and that appraisals usually required at least three comparable values of recent sales, neither of which the county’s current values fit.

Becton clarified that the county was attempting to identify mass appraisal rather than singular values, and had to apply various factors to each parcel to properly compile sales data, including the physical condition of the house and the level of maintenance it was given and additional features such as a garage or patio.

Smith also devoted a segment of the meeting to discuss the millage rate, highlighting that it would play a role in the next tax bills and assuring her constituents that the city would be rolling back their millage rate, as would the county according to Tift County Board of Commissioners chair Tony McBrayer.

She explained that state law required new assessments be reported in writing to all residents, as well as the current city, county, and school system millage rates. If current millage rates are maintained, resident tax bills would go up substantially. The rollback would work to reduce the tax bils, but a new millage rate could not be established until a tax digest number was identified, which itself could not be pinned down until after a period of time in which all residents would be able to appeal their newly assessed property values.

She encouraged her constituents to take advantage of this period as they saw fit, or, if they were content with their new property values, to hold the city to their promise to roll back millage rates once the digest had been established.

Becton assured residents that they could file these appeals in whatever way was easiest for them, including online, in person, or even mailing them in.