New Hart County RevalUnderway, But Old Reval Issues Linger

A new property revaluation is underway in Hart County, but this one should go more smoothly than the one begun in 2008 that is still causing problems for the county.

Hart County Administrator Jon Caime  called it an historic event.

 “This will be a normal year, a historic event in Hart County,” he said. “It will be the first in six years that we will have a normal year.”

Under Georgia State law, counties must do property revaluations every three years.  Caime said Hart County Chief Tax Appraiser J. Wayne Patrick is breaking up the reval into sections, doing one section of the county a year.  Caime said this year, the Tax Assessor’s office is focusing on revaluating property within the Hartwell city limits.

 “He will send out the re-assessment notices and then there will be a 45-day window where people can say, ‘yeah we agree’ or ‘no, we don’t agree,'” Caime said.

But Hart County property owners and the county itself are still struggling to come out from under the last reval that began in 2008.

That reval resulted in property tax assessments going out in multiple years as the county struggled to bring its assessments up to date.  Caime said it’s still not clear how much revenue the county will actually get from 2009, 2010, and 2011.  And there’s yet another a glitch, according to Caime.

The 2013 property tax revenue is coming in, but refund checks are now also going out to the tune of over $3 million dollars to property owners who overpaid for 2009, 2010, and 2011.

“So that’s the big problem we’re facing right now is wading through the refunds,” Caime said. “They (tax commissioner’s office) came in and they printed 6,500 refund checks. For them to send out those checks, they had to have $3-million in the bank. They can’t print those checks without cash in the bank, and for them to have that cash, they have to hold off on our tax payments (to the county and school system).  Right now, we’re ok, but it’s getting to the point where they have got to get this stuff straightened out with the refunds.”

Caime said about a thousand of those refund checks were set aside by the Tax Commissioner’s office because of a problem with how the refunds were calculated.

Additionally, Caime said many taxpayers are thinking their refund checks are being applied to their 2013 property tax bill, but they are not. That is because the current tax software was never designed to calculate refunds for back years and mistakes are being made.  To complicate matters, some of the checks that did go out, Caime said, may not be correct.

 “It seems so simple. You owe money, we owe you money. You would think this would be a simple matter to settle these debts, but it’s not working out that way with this software,” Caime said.

Caime said some property owners are thinking their 2013 taxes are paid but they’re not. 

“For example, you knew you were not supposed to get a $1,200 refund check but you got a $1,200 refund check.  And if you were smart, you would have called us. But some people are getting those checks and just putting that money in the bank. Now, their 2013 property taxes are delinquent and they won’t know that until they get a FIFA notice.”

Caime advises any Hart County property owner who receives a refund check to double check with the Tax Commissioner’s office to make sure their 2013 property taxes were paid and that they received the correct refund amount before spending that refund check.