New Castle County Council members respond to public concerns with this year’s property tax reassessment during a special meeting Tuesday.
Public comment during Tuesday’s special meeting focused almost entirely on the fallout from the court-ordered reassessment.
Many property owners are seeing substantial changes in their county and school taxes in the wake of the new property valuations, and some are contesting the accuracy of those assessments.
The reassessment process is revenue-neutral for New Castle County, meaning the county is collecting the same total amount of money as before. Property values were reassessed to more accurately reflect the current market. That means some residents have seen increases, others decreases and some little change at all.
Still, there have been mistakes.
Council member Kevin Caneco argued the county is seeing errors because this is the first reassessment in New Castle County in 40 years.
“So, if we're going to be mad at anybody, let's be mad at folks who have failed for 40 years to do an assessment,” Caneco said. “Because if we had rolling assessments like other states do every three years, you would have never noticed, and you would have not seen a dramatic increase as we have done.”
Caneco added that performing reassessments on 214 thousand parcels was never going to be a flawless process.
Council members passed an ordinance at the meeting authorizing the County CFO to develop a payment plan for the county portion of property taxes.
County taxes make up about 20 percent of residents’ property tax bill, with the rest going toward the school district tax.
County CFO Dave Del Grande would be in charge of putting the installment plan together.
“Ultimately, what we would be doing is – as long as they met our criteria of being in good standing – we would allow them to make three equivalent payments due September 30, December 31 and March 31,” Del Grande said. “Equal installment amounts. And at the end of that period, all penalty and interest would be wiped from the account related to this year's tax bill.”
But Del Grande noted if someone misses a payment in the installment plan, they would incur penalties and late fees.
During public comment, several residents argued the payment plan would offer insufficient relief.
Rachelle Wilson, a New Castle County constituent, said she finds the reassessments to be immoral.
“Thousands of working class families have recently received shocking notices demanding payment, in some cases over $2,000 by September,” Wilson said. “This is not due process. This is extortion disguised as administration.”
Another commenter said it is low-income homeowners who will be hit the hardest with these changes.
Residents were able to file informal and formal appeals for this year’s taxes, with the final deadline passing in March. Property owners will be able to appeal assessments again next year.
Some commenters said they were not given ample notice or made aware of this process.
Council member John Cartier said meaningful change on the issue needs to come from state lawmakers.
“Folks, if you really want to have an impact on the biggest portion of your property tax, it's working with your state legislators in New Castle County,” Cartier said.
He urged residents to voice concerns to state lawmakers before their special session August 12.
Council members passed the payment plan authorization ordinance 12-1.
