Sussex County closed its final appeal period for property reassessments Monday.
Final values for the county’s first reassessment in 50 years came in February. The county accepted appeals through March 31.
Fewer than 800 appeals – or about 1 percent of parcels – were brought to the County.
Sussex County finance director and chief operating officer Gina Jennings said her team heard rumors of an appeals rate of 10 percent. She said they were pleasantly surprised.
“We did create a calculator, we created videos. We tried to put as much information out that we could to the public… And we hope, with all that information, that people felt comfortable with the number that they had gotten from Tyler Technologies, and therefore we didn't see the number of appeals that we were planning on.”
The next step, Jennings said, is to go through the applications the county did receive.
Once all appeals are heard, the board will certify final assessment numbers and County Council will set a new tax rate.
That will be lower than its current rate at 44.5 cents to make sure reassessment remains revenue neutral. Jennings said that new rate is projected to be about 2.15 cents.
