The News Virginian goes negative

It seems that the paper is bound and determined to take a negative position on the recent Augusta County reassessment, one that just doesn’t seem to follow the facts. Not the facts that are being printed, the individual outlying cases, but the averages.

The average assessment in Augusta County rose 27.7 percent in the last four years. That seems like a lot based on the current housing market and this newspaper is happy to point out over and over that other local jurisdictions only went up 3 percent to 5 percent. However, that accounts for only the last TWO years in towns like Waynesboro. In the last reassessment two years ago, in the middle of the housing spike, the rise in Waynesboro was more than 35 percent on average. Add to the recent increase of 3 percent to 5 percent and you get an average change closer to 40 percent plus over the last four years, which makes Augusta’s 27.7 percent look downright pedestrian. My own Waynesboro property assessment rose more than 30 percent in the last four years, with a 6-percent increase in this cycle.

According to the data cited by The News Virginian and provided by RealWaynesboro.com, the average sales price in 2005 for Augusta County was $186,042. The average sale in 2008 was $223,556. The change? Plus 20.1 percent, not far from the assessment. Like it or not, we haven’t given back all the gains made in the housing boom, not yet anyway.

The action being demanded by The News Virginian, Francis Chester and others just seems out of proportion with the facts. File appeals, certainly. Take them all the way to court, if necessary. Demand that the supervisors lower the tax rate to offset the assessment. Perhaps reconsider the interval for assessments. But don’t throw it out with the bathwater, because it just isn’t that wrong.

Alex Stevens
Waynesboro