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New PVA Finding More Tax Dollars for County Budget

New PVA Finding More Tax Dollars for County Budget
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By Bill Hughes
Apr. 03, 2019 | PADUCAH
By Bill Hughes Apr. 03, 2019 | 06:16 PM | PADUCAH
McCracken County's Property Valuation Administrator has had his staff busy since he was appointed to the office in October, and their work will likely create more tax revenue for county leaders to appropriate.

Bill Dunn said an audit of the office's 2017 activity was done a few weeks ago, and it concluded that while a sample of commercial property meets the fair cash value guidelines established for the office, both residential and farm properties were indicated to be well below the established standard.

That standard is a ratio comparing the PVA's recorded value of a property to its actual value - from a recent sale, for example. If the office says a property is worth $95,000 but it recently sold for $100,000, the ratio would be 95 percent.

The audit selected random properties in each of the three categories and studied them, and said commercial properties met the 95 percent goal, but farm properties were at 64 percent, and residential properties were at 81 percent.

Dunn said he believes the 30 percent deficiency for farm properties is because they have structures on the land that his office doesn't know about. Farm properties have 10 acres or more and get an exemption from some permitting or inspection requirements that would alert his office to possible increased value. Dunn said that's a loophole that can be exploited.

He said, "We've found several houses since I've been here - probably four or five that I can think of - that weren't even on the tax roll. They were built 20-30 years ago and they've been getting a tax bill for vacant land."

Dunn said one house they found about two or three weeks ago is valued at $500,000 but the owner has received a tax bill from the Sheriff's Department for vacant land valued at $10,000 for the last ten years.

He's spoken to a couple of county commissioners about the farm property loophole but he isn't sure what they can do.

In the meantime, Dunn said his office is continuing work to catch up with the standard, but it will require an inspection of qualified aerial photos of each property or a personal visit by one his three field representatives. He said if they move fast they can each visit ten properties in a day, but with 34,000 properties in the county, it's a large task. 

Based on what they've done so far, Dunn sent a gross assessment report to the state on Monday, and it had an estimated increase of $800,000 in tax revenue compared to this time last year. That's money that will contribute to the annual budget and can be appropriated by the Fiscal Court. 

To keep this in perspective, the Fiscal Year 2018-2019 McCracken County budget is $31,824,726.00. 

For now, Dunn said they're concentrating on finishing up assessments of the farm properties and have about 250 left to inspect in the next two to three weeks. He thinks when they're done, they could add another 18-20 million dollars to the assessed property value in that category. That should  increase tax revenue, and could prompt county officials to lower the tax rate, Dunn said. 

Anyone who would like to discuss their property valuation can contact the PVA office at 270-444-4712 or visit them in the Court House Annex building at 621 Washington Street.

Dunn was appointed as interim PVA in October after Nancy Bock retired while facing theft and fraud charges. He won the November general election as the Republican candidate.
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