By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Tucker County Assessor Greg Stevens addressed the Tucker County Commission December 11th on the status of home prices in Tucker County and the upcoming impact they will have on house taxes in the County.“Its really kind of an exciting time for Tucker County because as most people know, our property values are just out of sight,” Stevens said. Everybody’s appraised value is improving and that’s a great thing, although with all good stuff there comes the bad, too, which is on the tax side of it.”
Stevens said home prices began to soar starting during the Pandemic, but other factors to the rising home prices include ski resorts and outdoor recreation, as well as the new Corridor H construction. “Unfortunately, since Covid started, that’s when the prices started going up,” Stevens said. “And then with the ski resort, the highway. We’ve had a lot of contributing factors where our property has increased in value.”
Stevens said that the County has failed state mandated monitoring the past three years in its attempts to mitigate the rising cost to County taxpayers. The result, Stevens said, is that the State could come in and change the tax rates for the County at a much higher rate. “We have failed our State monitoring for the last three years and at some point they are going to come in here and say enough’s enough,” Stevens said.
Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau explained what the State Monitoring was and how the County had failed the appraisal. “Let me explain what our State Monitoring is,” Rosenau said. “Our State Monitoring is the appraised value of the homes. Right now, we are at 80% overall on average throughout the county. That’s what we’ve been the last three years.”
According to Rosenau, the Assessor has to justify every year the County is not within the satisfactory range to the State. “The State of West Virginia after we don’t comply for so many years, have a tendency to come in to do it themselves because we are lacking in taxpayer revenue going to the State,” Rosenau said.
Rosenau said that the County tries to keep it as low as they possibly can for the taxpayer of the County. “What we try to do, in working with the Assessor, is try to keep it as low as we possibly can,” Rosenau said.
Stevens said that his office uses the market values to complete the yearly studies to submit to the state. “Its the Market Value,” Stevens said. “Not the Appraised Value. We get a monthly sales report. We use the valid sales to do studies at the end of the year.”
Stevens said the State requires the County to maintain a rate of 90% to 110% of market value. For the last three years, Tucker County, according to Stevens and Rosenau, has stayed at 80% despite routine raises. “We are required by the State to be within 90 to 110% and like Mike just said, we’ve been within 80 for the last three years,” Stevens said. “And we’ve made huge increases every year, but the property values have went up more than we have increased because as Mike said we didn’t want to put the burden on the taxpayers in Tucker County and we still don’t.”
Stevens said a large portion of the taxes raised go directly to the Department of Education, according to Stevens. “We’re still doing our best, unfortunately, as we take them up, it is a slight increase,” Stevens said. “Most of the increases came from Board of Education because the State supplements what their budget (is).”
Tucker County OEM Director and Tucker County School Board Member Kevin White said the Schools run on a budget of $16 million which are funded primarily from three sources: County first, then State and the remainder from grants and other funds. “The school budget is $16 million approximately,” White said. “Five million of that is County tax, six million is State provisions, so that is 11 million and the rest is where people apply for grants and federal grants and things like that.”
White said the County is primarily charged with funding education with the State charged secondary. “Each County is charged with public school education,” White said. “Then the State offsets what the County does not provide.”
During the meeting it was said that approximately 70% of the taxes collected by the county goes directly to the Board of Education with the remaining 30% being used for the remaining needs of the County. There were some places discussed that fund their schools 100% alone without State or grabt funding, but Tucker County is not financially able to do that. “The first cut of that goes to the Board of Education and to the children,” Rosenau said. “The people don’t understand that when their taxes go up, they think what are the County Commissioners doing with all that money.”
Rosenau said that the property price boon was good for those wishing to sell property in the County. “With the values going up, its not a blessing for everybody,” Roseanau said. “If you want to sell your property or your home, its a wonderful thing.”
Rosenau lamented that those who have lived here and wish to continue may be priced out of housing. “But those of us who have lived here our whole lives and want to continue to live here, our taxes are going up, the property values are going up, too, but with that comes increases in your taxes,” Rosenau said. “But for the average person that lives here, that their children want to buy a home here, they can’t afford it because its out of reach. Those are the kinds of things we try to look at as a Commission as an Assessor.”
Rosenau also said the increased pricing affects retirees and those who inherit property. “So if I die and my kids decide to sell my house, they benefit from it, but with Christine and I living there, our values keep going up each year and so our taxes keep going up,” Roseanau said.
Property speculation and Realtors have been making money in the property boom, according to Rosenau. “What with the property value, the Realtor companies, everybody else is profiting from it, its great because they get a percentage of whatever they sell,” Rosenau said.
Stevens said that his office is working on this year’s study to submit to the State and there are some areas in the County that could see increases up to 100% in value this year. “We are still working on the study, but there will be some values that are going to go 80, 90, 100% more than what they were last year,” Stevens said.
Despite Realtors being out of properties to sell in the County, Stevens said, property values continue to climb. “I’ve been speaking to Realtors, and they’re out of stuff to sell,” Stevens said. “ But everything is still going up in value. The prices aren’t coming down on property.”
Due to the housing shortages, Stevens said, buyers are spreading out where they are buying and how even begun to move into areas such as Parsons. “We’re getting a trickle down effect now,” Stevens said. “People in Canaan have seen it for years. Now that they are out of properties, they are even coming down into our area.”
Thomas and Davis have seen some of the most drastic increases in the past couple of years, Stevens said. “Thomas and Davis, they have really for the last couple years, they have really increased,” Stevens said.
The tax increases will be significant, Stevens said. However, should the State come in, Stevens said the increases would be far worse. “It is going to be significant,” Stevens said. “It will be even worse if the State comes in and does it.”
The goal for the County, Stevens said is to stay in the low 90 percentile. Stevens said the County never wants to tax the people at 100%. “We are going to try to get into the low 90s,” Stevens said. “We don’t want to get up to 100%. We don’t ever want, we never want to do that.”
There is hope that if the County can pass this year and if prices continue to increase, the rate can fall next year without fear of State intervention. “Even if we can pass this year and stuff keeps going up and we’re back down again next year, with little increases, we can stay close,” Stevens said. “We can actually fail again without the threat of them coming in.”
In some neighborhoods appraised value versus market values can differ up to 57%, according to Rosenau. “Those property values are skyrocketing so much,” Rosenau said. “In some neighborhoods, the appraised value we have on the books, compared to what they are actually selling for – that’s what we have to go by, the sales – we’re down by maybe 57%. So those are significant. The State’s going to have a heart attack when they see that stuff.”
Rosenau said that while the County cannot control what a home sells for, the County can control the levy rates. “What we are going to try to do is, we are working with the Auditor’s office now, we can’t control property values,” Rosenau said. “What a Realtor sell your home for, what a contractor sells your home for, we can’t control that. What we can control is the levy rate.”
Rosenau said the County is looking at the lowest levy rate they can have and stay in compliance. “We’re trying to get a feel on how much we can lower the levy rate to keep taxes as low as we can in our county and get our values up where the State will approve them,” Rosenau said. “Its a fine line to walk, I’m telling you to try to appease everybody, follow the law, its just a hard thing.”
Not all the neighborhoods in the County will see an increase in their taxes this year, Stevens said. Neighborhoods such as Windwood have actually seen market values lower this year, Stevens said on some types of properties. “We have different neighborhoods throughout the County that’s broke out like Windwood, its actually going to come down this year when everybody else is going up,” Stevens said.
Stevens said that the County walks a fine line with lowering the levy rates because if the bottom were to drop out of the housing market suddenly, the County could find itself without the funding to operate. “They can drop their levy rates 10% this year and try to help the tax payers all they want, but the fine line is, if there is ever a crash in the market and we drop our values, they’re only allowed to go up two percent a year,” Stevens said. “So if they drop all the way down, then it comes back to where they won’t have enough money to run the county.”
Tucker County is not home to several multi million dollar homes, according to Stevens and Rosenau. In 2010, Stevens said there was a single million dollar home in the county and this year alone six homes sold for over a million with one under construction with a value of $12 million. “Who ever thought in Tucker County we would ever be selling a $15 million home?” Rosenau said. “Who ever would have thought in Davis, West Virginia, a half million dollar house?”
Regardless to where the homes are located, Rosenau said the County cannot selectively target the levy rates, but must apply it equally throughout the County. “We can’t just target one neighborhood and say, we are going to keep your levy rate this and in St. George we are going to lower it to this,” Rosenau said. “When we set a levy rate it goes for the whole County.”
Letters for those whose rates will raise more than 10% will receive a letter from the State around January 15th, Stevens said. “The State prints up the letters for anybody that gets a 10% increase or more that will be sent out before January 15th,” Stevens said.
Should anyone have a question about their appraisal, Stevens said to contact his office. “We do a mass appraisal,” Stevens said. “We never see inside homes, anything like that. Have them call us and we’re more than glad to work with them its not like we’re trying to hurt people,” Stevens said.
