State legislators put the tumultuous property reassessment process under a microscope at a hearing in Dover Tuesday.
Democratic legislative leadership formed a bipartisan Special Committee made up of Representatives and Senators in August to look into the issue.
Representatives from Tyler Technologies, which performed the reassessment, answered questions Tuesday about their process and results. The reassessment was New Castle County’s first in 40 years.
Several legislators and public commenters asked about properties that saw steep changes in values and taxes. Tyler Technologies representatives repeatedly said they could not comment on individual properties and do not consider tax burden in their calculations.
State Rep. Kim Williams (D-Stanton) said Tyler Technologies didn’t offer many answers for the committee and chided it for spotty communication during the reassessment process.
“For one thing, when they sent out the first little postcard, it said it's going to go up like 400 or 500%,” Williams said. “Everyone was thinking that that was their taxes. So that was not very clear. And then when they sent out the characteristics of your home and you made the corrections, you never got a response back, whether they made [the changes or if] they had questions.”
Homeowners carried more of the tax burden post-reassessment, with many – including those in low-income neighborhoods – seeing steep increases in property taxes. Commercial properties largely saw decreases in their tax rates in New Castle County.
“And the main thing I hear from constituents is just wanting accountability, not saying that we're wrong up here, but people are wrong, and we need to do what's best for them,” State Rep. Michael Smith (R-Pike Creek) said.
The hearing took place after a cohort of landlords brought a lawsuit against the state, county and New Castle County school districts, challenging an ordinance allowing split tax rates.
Several people involved in the hearing – namely New Castle County and Tyler Technologies officials – said they could not speak on topics too closely related to the lawsuit.
Then-County Executive Matt Meyer postponed delivery of new property values, appeals instructions
Delaware lawmakers raised concerns about how Gov. Matt Meyer handled reassessment while acting as New Castle County executive. Several questioned how Meyer’s administration affected the timing of the process.
Lawmakers argued the process was rushed and led to issues with potential appeals. Representatives from Tyler Technologies, which conducted the reassessment, said they had letters informing residents of their new property values and how they could informally appeal it ready in the summer of 2024.
New Castle County officials recommended it be sent in July, but Gov. Meyer’s administration as County Executive pushed that date back to November, after the election day that saw Meyer elected governor.
State Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend (D-Newark) said officials should have erred on the side of caution by giving constituents more time to take advantage of appeals opportunities.
“You can't hear those dates and not think that it was absolutely politically motivated,” Townsend said. “You get elected on Tuesday; you send out bad news on Wednesday. That's what it sounds like happened, and that's unfortunate.”
Rep. Williams said she doesn’t understand why Meyer’s administration would delay sending the letters to November.
“I know there was an election, and it's just a little concerning,” Williams said. “I don't have any facts, but it is – why was that communication stopped?”
Delaware Public Media reached out to Gov, Meyer's office for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Wilmington sees ‘statistically relevant errors’ in reassessment numbers
Some properties in Wilmington saw property tax rates increase by 100 and 200%, according to a press conference in the city Thursday.
The Wilmington Mayor’s Chief of Staff Cerron Cade said part of the reason behind the hefty increases could be because Tyler Technologies didn’t have permitting data from the city.
“Even though the City of Wilmington resides in New Castle County, very few services [are provided by] New Castle County to the city of Wilmington outside of paramedic support,” Cade said. “So we do our own permitting for residential and building inspections for commercial buildings or whatnot. And so my expectation would have been that that data would have been collected in order to counterweight comp sales in the city of Wilmington. From my understanding, that never occurred.”
Tyler Technologies’ Senior Vice President of Property and Recording Jake Wilson said his team communicated that issue with New Castle County around 2022 or 2023.
“We had regular update meetings regarding that information, sharing project progress, etc, etc, approximately 70 times throughout the duration of our project,” Wilson said.
State Rep. Cyndie Romer (D-Newark) said Tyler Technologies’ mass appraisal report on Wilmington did not meet the standards set by the International Association of Assessing Officers.
“The report was presented to the city of Wilmington, showing the statistically relevant errors,” Romer said. “... So what we're talking about is statistically significant errors that benefit large corporations and errors that hurt low income property owners.”
House Speaker State Rep. Melissa Minor-Brown (D-New Castle) said the fact of the matter is permitting information was not collected or considered.
“And because of that, these numbers came out wrong,” Minor-Brown said. “And at the end of the day, it impacts people's lives, people's finances, people's houses, people's quality of life. Somebody's in trouble because it should've happened.”
Wilmington city officials said last Thursday they plan to allocate $500 thousand to contract a third-party organization’s assessment services. The project would see the hired organization perform a sampling of assessments including interior conditions, which Tyler Technologies did not include in its reassessment process.
Tyler Technologies’ Wilson said that is normal.
“Interior inspections are not standard practice in mass appraisal and they're rarely conducted in most states,” Wilson said. “The industry relies on exterior observations, public records, sales, data and statistical modeling to efficiently and accurately value large volumes of property, stop none our methodologies follow These established best practices and have been successfully implemented across numerous jurisdictions.”
But Wilmington saw low-income communities hit hard with new values, Cade said.
“That is not simply a mistake of statistics or just tough cookies for urban assessments,” Cade added. “That is missing data that was supposed to be included in the City of Wilmington assessment that [was] not. And unless someone's going to sit in and tell me that that has zero impact on the assessments, I would beg to differ.”
Tyler Technologies reports a 2.4% appeal rate, excluding informal appeals
Property owners filed about 11,500 informal appeals in New Castle County with 55% resulting in revisions. Those were not included in the 2.4% appeal rate, which only included formal appeals.
“It offers that property owner an opportunity to correct errors or explain why the informal initial valuation is erroneous,” New Castle County’s attorney Aaron Goldstein said. “So that's an informal appeal.”
The formal appeals process is ongoing, and the County does not have its final numbers. But it did see a trend with appeals overall – a “high number” resulted in a change, according to Goldstein.
“The process of mass appraisal never predicts to be a perfect process, right?” Tyler regional manager Michael McFarlane said. “There's millions of pieces of data that are collected throughout the jurisdiction on many different elements, and again, even permitting data, assessments are still valid without permitting data, but more data is always good.”
The committee adjourned around 3:00 p.m. Tuesday and will return for a second hearing Oct. 7.
