DOVER, De. - Kent County is starting a multi-year, multi-step process in reassessing property value across the county. It's the first time since 1987 that the county is looking at property value and it's correlating tax payments.
"In reality, it is to ensure that their property in relative to all other properties in the county, is being taxed fairly. Fairness is the key here. That's the objective, that we make sure there's no ambiguities in the tax landscape, that people are not being taxed higher than they should be, or not paying their fair share," explained Michael Petit de Mange, county administrator.
Back in May 2020, a decision made by the Chancery Court determined that Kent County's taxing system was outdated. Now, the county has tapped Tyler Technologies to help conduct the property assessment. Mike McFarlane, who conducted a presentation Tuesday on the process, said that the first step of aerial photos were already completed in the springtime, and that the next step would be to dispatch crews directly into neighborhoods to survey properties.
"What they're looking to verify are property characteristic that are germane to the valuation of their home. And so things like condition, square footage, quality or grade of the improvement, number of bathrooms and bedrooms, things of that nature are what we're looking to ascertain and verify at the time of field inspection," explained McFarlane, who also emphasized crews would not be interacting with minors, only adults, and that they would only be conducting observations on the exteriors of homes.
Tyler employees will also have county issued identification cards and vests that say "Tyler" on them for community members to easily identify them. "We will have a public information campaign that would describe what general areas we will be in next, and then the taxpayer or homeowner would have a pretty good idea of when to expect Tyler staff to be conducting a field inspection on their particular property," added McFarlane.
After decades under the same tax code, Petit de Mange admits the word "reassessment" could sound concerning for some property owners. But he says this is all in the name of evening the playing field, and making sure everyone is paying what they should.
"They should not also fear that this is an automatic tax increase. It is not. It's about equity. Now there will be assessments that will rise, and there will be some assessments I suspect that will decline, and some that will stay relatively the same," said Petit de Mange.
Public meetings will be held throughout October in Kent County so the community can ask questions and participate in the process. Those meetings will be as follows:
Tuesday, October 12, 1pm at the Milford Senior Center (111 Park Avenue, Milford, DE 19963)
Tuesday, October 12, 6pm at the Harrington Fire Company (20 Clark St. Harrington, De 19952)
Thursday, October 14, 1pm at the Kent County Levy Court Chambers (555 Bay Rd, Dover, De 19901)
Thursday, October 14, 6pm at the Cheswold Fire Company (371 Main St, Cheswold, De 19936)