Augusta Supervisors begin reassessment plans

The Augusta County Board of Supervisors took initial steps Wednesday to start the ball rolling on a new county real estate reassessment.

The supervisors' reassessment committee will confer with Rockinghan County government on how its in-house assessment program has worked. At the same time, the board directed Finance Director Jennifer Whetzel to draft a request for proposals from vendors about performing a contracted reassessment.

The county's contractor for the 2009 reassessment was Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal in Staunton. The reassessment's total cost to the county was $633,000, Whetzel said.

She said the county could choose from a number of vendors within two hours of Augusta County or could do the work in-house. Whetzel's estimate of the cost of an in-house reassessment would be $550,000 per year and would include the cost of a chief assessor, statistician, assessors and clerical help.

Whetzel said the current timeline calls for Augusta County to decide on who is doing the reassessment by June.

Wayne District Supervisor Jeff Moore said voters he talked to last fall were unhappy with the 2009 reassessment. He supports the idea of an in-house assessment, and believes the county would receive a more accurate measurement of residential property values.

Middle River Supervisor Larry Wills said the in-house annual costs of $550,000 and the climate of the current economic situation would not allow him to support adding staff to the county payroll. He said he could not support an in-house reassessment when it could be done more cheaply by a contractor.

South River Supervisor David Beyeler said using in-house asessors will cost the county taxpayers twice the amount of a contracted reassessment.

"There is no free ride in this,'' Beyeler said. He estimated that the cost to taxpayers in-house would be one additional cent on the tax rate.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Tracy Pyles said he thinks an in-house assessment would provide more long-term quality to the county, and he also said if the work was done in-house, some staff from the county's commissioner of the revenue office would likely be shifted to work on an in-house team.

Meanwhile, supervisors voted Wednesday not to proceed with plans to open a county park on 30 acres of land in Verona, located on a flood plain and on a site that once served as a Verona wastewater treatment plant.

Beverley Manor Supervisor David Karaffa asked that the nearly $500,000 in county infrastructure and recreation funds be returned to supervisors.

Karaffa said the site was not the right location for a park. The site is located near Interstate 81 and the American Safety Razor plant.