Nearly two-thirds of property tax appraisals hitting mailboxes across DeKalb County show homes worth the exact same as last year.
But there is enough uncertainty — about how the tax rates are being calculated for city residents, as well as about the 40,000 homes that went down in value and the 39,000 that went up — that the County Commission on Tuesday postponed setting their property tax rate. It was proposed to remain steady with last year’s rate.
“I don’t want to be locked in to a rate when we have questions,” Commissioner Elaine Boyer said after a split vote to delay setting the millage rate.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the 232,000 properties shows that Memorial Drive is the effective dividing line this year, with nearly all increases occurring just north of the artery that links Stone Mountain to Atlanta.
But the pockets of increases are often surrounded by homes where values are flat — prompting some residents to wonder if there is a glitch in the appraisals.
“I honestly don’t know what’s going on,” said Tamara Caspary, a human genetics professor at Emory University whose home between LaVista and Briarcliff roads in central DeKalb jumped 45 percent in value from last year. “I’m pretty confident something will be adjusted, because we’re just so out of line with all our neighbors.”
DeKalb assessors valued Caspary’s four-bedroom home, built more than four decades ago, at $490,000 this year.
Yet less than two miles away in the same Briarcliff Woods neighborhood, Mitch Cohen’s similarly sized home, built 12 years later, is valued at $308,900.
Unlike Caspary, Cohen appealed his assessment last year and locked in the value for this year. But even that, he said, doesn’t explain the variations.
“The money we pay in taxes does a lot of good things, but you want to feel like it’s equitable,” said Cohen, a retired physician from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “When everything is so out of whack, that’s why so many people are frustrated.”
County residents who live in cities, who make up about a quarter of DeKalb’s population, have their own frustrations.
The steady millage rate for unincorporated residents would be 21.21 mills, made up of smaller rates for police, fire, debt and general government services.
Last year, the county adjusted the rates for services such as police and parks that the cities pay the county for or provide themselves. However, residents in the unincorporated area did not see their tax rate rise in 2012, while the rate went up by as much as 15 percent for residents in some cities.
This year, the county tax rate paid by residents in larger cities such as Dunwoody and Decatur is proposed to dip almost a full mill. But the four smallest cities would pay a bit more because of an increase in the police rate for those cities that again unincorporated residents would not see.
“Every city is concerned with the police rate,” said Mark Baggett, the manager of the DeKalb Municipal Association, which acts on behalf of the cities. “So far, we don’t have an answer why those rates would go up.”
Tuesday’s delay should give time to sort through those questions. It also gives commissioners more time to see if, after four years of plunging property values, they will hold steady once firmer figures come in.
When the county’s $559 million budget was adopted in January, it assumed values would drop 3 percent. If the values remain flat, the county will have about $1.5 million more than expected.
Chief Operating Officer Zachary Williams is expected to recommend how to spend any additional dollars, or whether to save them, during committee meetings next week.
The commission is scheduled to set its millage rate on June 18. Public hearings are slated for July 2 and 16, with a vote following the second session. Under that schedule, tax bills would go out on Aug. 15.
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