By Jessie Burchette
Salisbury PostThe 2007 revaluation has brought intense scrutiny on the County Assessor’s office with questions about fairness, access to public records and a possible conflict of interest.
The Rowan County Board of Commissioners voted June 18 to give Robert G. “Jerry” Rowland a new two-year contract as the assessor, but the vote wasn’t unanimous.
Earlier this month during the public comment period, Steve May, a retired Kannapolis Police detective, questioned the fairness of the revaluation, comparing the increase in value of his property on Phaniels Church Road to the properties of commissioners and Rowland.
May asked how a 27-year-old singlewide mobile home could increase in value $1,000 while a house jointly owned by Rowland on High Rock Lake actually decreased in value by $912 in the revaluation.
“I have not made the first improvement. In fact, its condition has deteriorated since I purchased it,” May said.
“I am confused as to how a waterfront home decreases in value and a 27-year-old vacant mobile home increases $1,000 in value,” May said.
The China Grove area resident bought 3.5 acres at 1270 Phaniels Church Road in 2002 with the idea that his children could eventually build there. It had an aging mobile home which has remained vacant five years.
The overall assessed value of the Phaniels Road property increased 52 percent.
The Rowland property at 415 Crane Point Road increased in value overall from $188,000 to $248,000. However, the value of the house dropped from $93,292 to $92,380.
May used the county’s online GIS (Geographic Information System) to print out property cards on commissioners and other top officials before the revaluation. Once the new values were posted, he compared the changes and is disturbed with what he found.
Calling them “sweetheart deals,” May ticked off parcels that include the home of Arnold Chamberlain, chairman of the Board of Commissioners, on Devon Drive and his business, Chamberlain Exterminators, on South Main Street.
The GIS records show the assessed value of Chamberlain’s home increased 8.6 percent, and the value of his business increased 14.4 percent.
The assessment of Chamberlain’s business structure at 1903 S. Main St. increased from $128,356 to $128,710, or $354. May pointed out that $354 is an increase of slightly more than one-quarter of 1 percent. Combined with the land, the overall property increased from $224,296 to $256,630, or an overall increase of 14 percent.
Chamberlain’s home and property at 145 Devon Drive, increased from from $160,000 to $174,000, an increase of 8.75 percent.
May also questioned a decrease in the value of property owned by Vice Chairman Chad Mitchell in Faith, where the building value dropped $3,600.
Mitchell spoke up, pointing out his house was damaged by fire and is being repaired.
May also cited the failure of the Board of Equalization and Review to notify him of its decision within the required 30 days after the board adjourned.
His appeal was held on April 11. He received notification on June 22. May said he called the Assessor’s Office to ask when the Board of Equalization adjourned and was told by a staffer “either May 17th or May 18th.”
“The taxpayers are expected to follow the laws,” and the county should also, May said.
“I am a reasonable guy and realize property values increase periodically, but values and tax burdens should be fair and uniformly applied to all property owners,” he said.
Chamberlain stopped May from completing his presentation, pointing out that he had exceeded the three-minute limit.
Chamberlain didn’t respond to calls from the Post.
Rowland said last week that his staff doesn’t look at the name of a property owner when establishing the value of that property.
Regarding his property, Rowland said many houses on the lake, including his, are old and are declining in value, while the land value is soaring.
He suggested that if May’s singlewide increased in value, it must be related to how May filled out the personal property listing form sent out in January. Otherwise, he said the value of the mobile home should have gone down.
Several days after his presentation to commissioners, May told the Post he considers the whole process of appealing an assessment as stacked against the property owner.
“They want to create a very uncomfortable environment,” he said, adding that many others may have been intimidated in such an atmosphere. Having spent a career testifying in court, May said he wasn’t intimidated.
Revaluation Director Barbara Ames McGuire has a different view. May “came into my board and was condescending from the time he sat down,” she said.
McGuire and Rowland serve as secretaries to the the Board of Equalization and Review.
May said he plans to continue to ask questions and appeal the values of his property to the state.
May is also encouraging other property owners across the county to raise issues of inequities to the Property Tax Division of the N.C. Department of Revenue, Attention David Baker, director, P.O. Box 25000, Raleigh, N.C. 27640-0640.
James Rollans, a Mount Ulla farmer, has earned a “troublemaker” label from the Assessor’s Office for doggedly questioning procedures.
Earlier this year, Rollans filed an appeal to the state of the Schedule of Values adopted by commissioners. The county subsequently agreed to change its schedule of land use values, dropping most considerably below the rates used in the 2003 revaluation.
The change will save farmers millions of dollars in taxes.
But the appeal almost didn’t happen.
When Rollans saw a notice in the paper that commissioners were going to adopt the Schedule of Values, he went to the Assessors Office to see a copy of the book.
“They claimed they couldn’t find it,” Rollans said. “There was nothing displayed. Finally, a lady found it.”
Rollans and his wife, Marian, started looking through the hundred-plus pages, writing down page numbers to get copied. A staffer started making the requested copies.
Rollans said McGuire, the revaluation director, stopped the staffer from making copies and took the book.
“She said they didn’t have time, that we could make a written request” for the copies, Rollans said.
Without access to the book, they weren’t sure exactly what pages they needed.
Rollans ended up asking for a copy of the entire book, all 172 pages. It cost him $86, or 50 cents a page.
Wondering if his experience with the Rowan Assessor’s Office was standard operating procedure, Rollans went to Statesville and checked out the Iredell Assessor’s Office.
“They had a copy publicly displayed on the counter,” Rollans said. He asked about getting a copy. They said they could provide it on CD or paper copies.
He paid $25 for a copy of the Iredell County Schedule of Values.
“Iredell was professional, open. They never asked why we wanted it. They offered any assistance,” he said. “Rowan was not open. The difference was unbelievable.”
Rollans also challenged the county on the required timing of legal notices for public hearings at the outset, forcing commissioners to reschedule the adoption of the Schedule of Values.
The Rollanses hope they have not been singled out for special treatment because of their challenge on the Schedule of Values.
Marian Rollans called to schedule an appointment with the Board of Equalization and Review. They have five parcels of land.
When the staffer asked for the parcel numbers, Marian Rollans blurted out the one she remembered and told the staffer she wanted to appeal the values of all the properties they own.
“I asked if I needed to call back and give the other parcel numbers,” she said.
The staffer said that wouldn’t be necessary, that all of the parcels would be included in the appeal, Marian Rollans said.
The Board of Equalization of Review met in Rowland’s office to hear the Rollanses’ appeal.
They were prepared to give information on five appeals but said Rowland interrupted them and told board members they could hear only one appeal, the one parcel number Marian Rollans had provided earlier.
The Rollanses asked which properties were used as comparables to establish the value on their property. Appraisers use sales data on comparable properties in the revaluation process.
“We wanted to see which sales they are using,” said Marian Rollans, who questions if they are really using comparables.
“The Board of Equalization and Review appeared clueless,” she said.
They were notified weeks later that the value of their home tract was unchanged.
The Rollanses live in a historic house built in 1895. The house is located on a less than a one-half acre tract, which is accessible only by a dirt road that crosses railroad tracks.
The current revaluation raised the value of the land from $18,000 per acre to $27,000 per acre, increasing the value of their partial acre by $6,000. The overall value of the parcel, including the house, went from $93,000 to $109,000.
Their five parcels’ assessed value increased by an average of 50 percent.
The Rollanses were in the audience when May raised questions about the revaluation.
James Rollans said he was almost speechless. He had done some research and had planned to discuss it publicly at a prior commissioners meeting. Dozens of speakers showed up to talk about schools and the budget, so he shelved his presentation.
He noted that some of the commissioners got hit pretty hard. Jim Sides had a 16 percent increase, and Tina Hall’s property went up 43 percent.
He also cited Commissioner Jon Barber’s father, William “Bill” Barber, whose property value increased 107 percent. Commissioner Barber raises cattle with his father on the property. James Rollans said much of that property is in a flood plain.
The GIS system has provided a wealth of information for the Rollanses. In prior revaluations, if they wanted to know the values of other properties, they had to go to the county office and buy property cards.
Now they can click on any of the 80,000 parcels and have the information on the screen in a few seconds.
They believe that access to the information is allowing people to take a closer look.
“People are more savvy. They are asking more questions. They can find more information and understand,” he said. “People need to ask questions. We need to shed light on the revaluation process. It seems to be done in the dark.”
The Rollanses described their experience with the Assessors Office as frustrating and say others have told them of similar experiences.
“It’s frustrating,” Marian Rollans said. “Questions are not openly answered. We don’t know if it’s designed to conceal, or if they don’t know the answers. It’s not a user friendly experience.
“If you call their hands on something, you have to fear being mistreated on the other side.”
The Rollanses recalled a meeting at the Assessors Office with a mediator from the state regarding the land use values.
They said McGuire told the mediator, “These two are just troublemakers,” and left the room shortly thereafter.
McGuire and Rowland say McGuire never called the Rollanses troublemakers.
“We’ve been here a lot of years. Anybody wants (information) they get it,” said McGuire, adding that she did stop the clerk from making copies of the Schedule of Values. “They took our clerk away from her work. Nobody gets to do that.”
Rowland and McGuire said the public doesn’t understand the revaluation process.
They cited the relatively few appeals ó 5,700 out of 80,000 ó as a testament to the success of their work. Statewide, an average of 10 percent of values are appealed.
McGuire said more than 90 percent of Rowan property owners “thought the values were fair or didn’t have an opinion.”
Another property owner burned up the phone lines to commissioners and county officials after a long distance confrontation with the Assessors Office.
Tina Brown, who lives in Atlanta, owns property on Long Ferry Road jointly with other family members.
Brown called the Post after talking with Rowland.
“I’ve never quite dealt with anyone double talking that much,” she said. She said she has dealt with the Gwinnett County, Ga., assessor’s office without any problems.
She said the property value went up 60 percent on the 43 acres on Long Ferry Road, which she said won’t perk and has numerous streams through it that makes much of it unsuitable for development.
When she mentioned the farm or land use program, Rowland called it a “horrible atrocity.”
“For a tax assessor to say that the program is a horrible atrocity was shocking. It’s a state law on the books. It’s none of his business,” Brown said.
Like the Rollanes and May, she said Rowland did not offer to provide the information on comparables. Instead, he said his office would provide the comparable properties used only when she filed an appeal to the state, she said.
When she reminded him that the comparables are public information, Rowland said she could come to the Assessors Office and get the information but refused to send the material to Atlanta.
Brown was also incensed to discover that the value of her property actually increased due to an appeal on another property. She was told her parcel was used as a comparable, and in the process of the other appeal, the board increased her value by $7,000.
Rowland apparently relented and sent Brown extensive paperwork after she talked with County Manager Bill Cowan and several commissioners.
Rowland said he sent Brown 200 pages of sales data but said he hesitates to send out such information because the public doesn’t understand it.
Rowland and McGuire said they use sales from throughout the county. “We don’t have different comparables to apply to different properties,” McGuire said. “We have all the sales that took place. The sales book is available to the public. They have to ask for it.”
In neighboring Davidson County, the tax administrator said information on comparables is available.
Joe Silver, tax administrator who serves as both collector and assessor, said information on comparable sales isn’t protected by any privacy law he knows of.
“Comparables are public record. If somebody wants to see the sales data the comparables, the information is available,” said Silver, who has been on the job for 23 years.
nnnContact Jessie Burchette at 704-797-4254 or jburchette@salisburypost.com.