DELAWARE -Delaware lawmakers are holding the second of four legislative hearings today to re-examine the state’s court-ordered property reassessment, which began last year and marked the first update to property values in decades. The hearing, scheduled for 9:30 a.m., will feature questioning of officials from Kent and Sussex counties.
State Senator Russ Huxtable (D) said the process is helping establish a fairer system moving forward. “Since we hadn’t done it in 40 or 50 years, we’re setting the platform, the groundwork to be able to do something more responsibly in the future and more equitably as well,” Huxtable said.
Senator Brian Pettyjohn (R) added that the legislature wants to identify where counties are facing challenges. “The counties are the ones that are doing this process, so if there’s pain points, if they’re saying it’s something they are limited to in Delaware code, we want to get that information so we can change that so they can be more successful in the appeals process or reassessment process,” he said.
At the first hearing held last week, lawmakers questioned Tyler Technologies, the company that handled the reassessment, about how it calculated new property values. Company representatives defended their methodology but declined to discuss some details due to a pending lawsuit linked to an August bill.