County Administrator Doug Eaves explains house bill 581 and notes lack of ordinance for administrator

County Administrator Doug Eaves presented information about House Bill 581, for property and sales tax reform, which was adopted by the General Assembly during session the previous year. “It’s supposed to be on the ballot in November as a Constitutional Amendment. It must be approved by the voters in the State.” He mentioned it would be void unless adopted as a Constitutional Amendment. “

“The reason we’re bringing it to you in July, although it won’t be on the ballot until November, is because there is a very short window of action that the Commissioners have between January the 1rst and March the 1rst to take action.”

He mentioned there were two major provisions. “The first is a creation of a floating homestead exemption. It’s automatic. The County doesn’t have any choice in the matter if you don’t act between January the 1rst and March the 1rst to opt out.” He mentioned that opting out would require advertising and three hearings.

He outlined the opt out process. “You can’t start the process until January the one. The resolution has to be in the Secretary of State by March 1rst 2025.”

He talked about how it would affect taxes. “It freezes the base value for the current homestead exemption personnel people at the tax year 24 values. Which means their assessed value will stay at that level, for 24. They’ll have increases each year based on consumer price index, as set by the department of revenue. After that year, if someone gets a new homestead exemption, then that will become their base year. It will survive the death of the spouse, so it will convert to the widow or widower, but it does not survive if the property is sold.” He mentioned the measure was tied to CPI, and not the housing market.

Eaves gave further details. “The key part of this that I want you to understand is that net digest value is frozen.” He gave the result. “The only mechanism that you have to fund the government is a millage increase.”

He talked about how this would affect different land owners. “The residential homestead property is the only part of this digest that will receive this floating homestead freeze. The other 82.65% of the digest won’t be frozen.” He talked about how this would affect other property owners when tax increases occurred. “Anyone who has Ag property or commercial and industrial will have to pay the price.”

He also addressed the current inequities. “It locks in the inequities in the current digest. Everyone remembers that our sales ratio is 34%. So our lower and middle range values are higher than they should be, our upper values are lower, that’s why we are having to do the

reassessment.” He mentioned that if the measure became law, the reassessment wouldn’t matter. “Unfortunately, that value is going to be locked in.”

He noted another change. “It also gives the board of assessors the ability to directly appeal the sales ratio to the Department of Audits whereas before it had to be the Board of Commissioners or the Board of Education.”

He also stated that it allowed for a new sales tax. “It does create a new sales tax of a limit of 1% that can be implemented in 0.05% increments.” He mentioned that if any of the Cities or the Board of Education opted out, then that sales tax cannot be put into place.

In other news, Eaves also stated they were working on an ordinance change. “It’s been noted that the County does not have an actual codification of the County Administrator.” Afterwards, Eaves gave details. “In the code of ordinances there are several comments and notes related to a County Administrator.” He noted that while the code outlined specific responsibilities, it didn’t fully flesh out the details. “They’ve never gone back and actually did an ordinance creating the position.”

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