No increase in taxes, more funding for the new public library, the same amount for the schools and a more than 3 percent overall drop in spending highlight Jackson County’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Does the proposal simply sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not, interim County Manager Chuck Wooten reassured commissioners this week when presenting the fruit of Finance Officer Darlene Fox and his labors.

The proposed budget would total just more than $58 million; the general fund would come to just more than $49 million. A budget work session is set for 1 p.m. on Monday, May 9, when commissioners meet with the Jackson County Department of Social Services. At 2 p.m., they will walk through the proposed budget with Wooten to determine what, if any, changes they want to make.

“We just trimmed every department,” Fox explained before the meeting while passing out copies of the budget to reporters.

County employees won’t see a pay increase for the second consecutive year, and there is a net decrease in county employment by 17.1 positions (through elimination of open positions, consolidation of some duties, and privatizing some of the solid waste operations).

Additionally, Jackson County would give the school system the $235,000 extra in capital outlay administrators requested recently. School leaders said during a work session with commissioners that the money was necessary to fix roofs, buy security cameras and meet other basic facility needs.

School board members and administrators also requested commissioners hold steady at the same nearly $6.8 million amount budget this year, which is accomplished under the proposed budget.

The new Jackson County Public Library in Sylva would see funding increase from $500,000 to $675,000.

Mary Otto Selzer, who attends virtually every commission meeting, including this one, was pleased with the proposal. She is the co-chair of the Friends of the Library committee that raised nearly $2 million in donations and grants to furnish and outfit the new library. The former investment banker praised the working budget for containing sufficient funds to keep the library operating at 45 hours per week.

“The county and community have made a significant investment in this new facility and we want to have it open and accessible to serve the communities needs,” Selzer said. “The community had hoped our new library would be able to increase its hours of operation from 45 to 60 hours per week  — the minimum level recommended by the state — but this is wonderful news in view of the current financial climate.”

Selzer said Librarian Dottie Brunette is working to set the hours of operation for the new library complex (they are in process now of moving the libraries books and other resources to the building). Brunette, Selzer said, is hoping to offer at least a couple of days with evening hours to better serve working families.

Funding for nonprofits in Jackson County was held at current year levels. New dollars amounting to $7,000 was provided for Mountain Projects; Webster Enterprises has new funding in the amount of $10,000; and The Community Table, which requested $10,000, was recommended for $5,000.

“It’s not a surprise – it’s a tough economic climate,” said Amy Grimes, executive director of The Community Table, a group helping feed those in need. “Anything we can get in the form of financial assistance is a help.”

Wooten said the financial climate seems to be improving.

“Jackson County continues to feel the impact of the economic slowdown even though some signs suggest things may have bottomed out,” Wooten wrote in his introductory remarks to the proposed budget. “Foreclosures are up and building permits are down; but, overall, it seems we may be witnessing the beginning of a slow recovery.”

Wooten noted that while the ad valorem tax rate of 28 cents would remain the same, and that the fund balance (the county’s rainy day fund) would go untapped, “overall the projected ad valorem tax value and revenues are less than were budgeted in fiscal year 2010-2011.”

The projected tax base is $11,323,240,141, or $74.5 million less than the current fiscal year.

Haywood County, like everyone else, is bracing for the impact of state budget cuts. But the good news is that they may leave the budget fray with fewer scrapes than they thought.

In Raleigh, budget committees have been busily trying to bang out cuts in the billions, and while nothing is yet final, a proposed House budget released last week gave a view of the carnage that may be to come.

So Haywood commissioners met with county staff to hash out what this might mean for the county’s budget and the services that rely on it.

Though there will certainly be state cuts that will fall to counties to pay for, but County Manger Marty Stamey told commissioners at a budget workshop last week he’s not as concerned as he could be.

“Best case scenario, we’ll be $250,000 out, which is good,” said Stamey, meaning that a mere $250,000 shortfall would be their best landing in the budget fallout. “A lot of counties would be proud to be where we are. People say what they want to say, but budget-wise, we’ve done the right things over the last few years.”

The county’s budget is still in flux, waiting on both state cuts and the reaction of other groups, such as community colleges and the school system, which may come to the county for helping plug holes from state cuts of their own.

Currently, community colleges are looking at a 10 percent reduction in state funding, while K-12 education was slightly shielded, only facing an 8.8 percent cut.

One area where the county might feel some crunch is in its health and human services budget. The state is seeking to reduce spending there by $527 million, including $527 million in Medicaid, $67 million for mental health services and half of the funding for senior centers. Also on the chopping block are Community Care block grants and Smart Start spending.

“Human services are really busting at the seams for demand in this county,” said Stamey, noting that a decline in services would affect many citizens harshly.

Another proposal that staff said seemed likely to come through is the closure of four state prisons. Though there’s no word yet on which prisons would close, it would shift the burden of housing prisoners serving time for misdemeanors to county jails.

Stamey reported that, while Sheriff Bobby Suttles said he was confident he could house the criminals currently in the system, predicting whether they’ll have room in the future is impossible.

“That’s one reason that we think we might need to have higher contingency this year, for things like this, because that’s an unknown,” said Stamey.

On the revenue side, Finance Director Julie Davis told commissioners that the picture is no clearer there.

Surprisingly, said Davis, the property revaluation that happened this year isn’t what’s throwing projections into turmoil.

Usually, property values would go up with a revaluation, requiring counties to tinker with the tax rate to offset would would otherwise be an unpallatable rise in property taxes.

But due to the stagnant real estate market, the total value of property remained nearly flat in the recent revaluation — requiring little adjustment to the property tax rate to bring in the same amount of revenue as last year.

Sales tax is a different story, however.

“Sales taxes have been up and down. Looking at the comparison to last year, four months they’re up compared to the current year and three months they’re down,” Davis said. “Were chasing a moving target on revenues.”

The fluctuation makes it hard to predict how much money the county can bank on from sales tax next year, but year-to-date on average, sales tax collections are down 10 percent over last year.

In light of that, and state-level slashing, a property tax rate increase might not be out of the question.

Overall, though state cuts do look grim, Stamey said he’s confident in the county’s ability to stay afloat without undue carnage. But, he said, there just aren’t any solid numbers yet to be had, so it’s impossible to know for certain.

“We’re at the mercy of a lot of people’s budget’s right now to sort of figure out our budgets,” said Stamey. “I feel like I’d be doing us an injustice right now [to give numbers].”

The picture painted by county staff was in broad strokes, an overview of what could be coming in stead of the nuts and bolts of what to do about it. But that was purposeful, according to Davis.

“We specifically did not mention numbers or the revenue neutral rate because there is so much up in the air right now,” said Davis.

Commissioners will be meeting throughout the spring for more budget talks, though they noted that much of it is out of their hands.

As Commissioner Kevin Ensley said, “so if the state leave’s us alone, we’ll be alright.”

A state budget is expected by early June.

Haywood schools talk budget

Haywood County Schools could be facing a budget shortfall of $4 million if the state House of Representatives proposed budget gets adopted. The school board held a public hearing on Tuesday to hear community feedback and discuss what cuts might mean for local schools.

The reductions would mean 46 positions would be slashed within the system. Teacher assistants would be scaled back by 49 percent, textbooks by 68 percent and dropout prevention programs, school technology and staff development initiatives, among other things, would be eliminated.

See www.smokymountainnews.com Thursday for an update on the public hearing and the impact of threats to school funding.

Budget concerns that the state will dump responsibilities on local governments, and anecdotal assessments of the current economic climate, dominated a meeting last week of Macon County’s elected local leaders.

The informal, relatively freewheeling discussion took place over plates of steak and potatoes in a conference room at the county’s airport. Elected leaders from Franklin, Highlands and Macon County took part, joined by the towns’ and county’s top administrators.

Describing Highlands as the “bellwether” economic indicator for Macon County, Commissioner Ronnie Beale queried Mayor David Wilkes about the spending mood in his better-heeled-than-most town.

Wilkes, who owns and operates three outfitting stores in the Highlands and Cashiers areas, responded the retail sector seems to be emerging normally from the winter doldrums.

“Business is picking up as it usually does, and people seem to have a comfort level,” Wilkes said.

He added that the huge second-home population of Highlands has helped some to insulate the town. Though more-regular folks might forgo the expense of traveling to the area, those who have invested in a real house have proved more likely to continue spending part of the year there regardless of the depressed economy, Wilkes said.

Macon County Manager Jack Horton told elected leaders that Macon County had eight housing starts last month, one of which was in Highlands. Though not outstanding when compared with the housing-boom days, Horton said that number does represent an uptick for the county.

Highlands Commissioner Larry Rogers, who owns a construction company in Highlands, said business is still very slow, as did Beale, who runs a construction company in Franklin.

State eyes county savings

Looming ominously over the discussion were fears the state’s $2.4 billion or so shortfall will result in future hard times for local governments. Gov. Beverly Perdue earlier this month sent unhappy shockwaves through the leadership of the state’s 100 counties with her suggestion counties pick up the tab for some state functions by tapping into the $2.1 billion they collectively hold in reserve through fund balances.

Macon County’s fund balance is healthy, representing about 25 percent of its budget. The state requires counties to keep a reserve of at least 8 percent. The state pointed to these robust fund balances as proof that counties aren’t hurting as much as the state and can afford to take on more responsibilities.

“We don’t feel like we should be punished for being prudent with our money,” Brian McClellan, chairman of the commission board and a financial advisor in Highlands, said of Perdue’s plan. “We don’t think it’s a good idea for them to eyeball our county fund balance.”  

In an interesting reversal of fortunes and a now-the-shoe-is-on-the-other-foot kind of way, county commissioners in February sparked a very similar reaction from local education leaders, when, during a budget work session, commissioners discussed the need for school administrators to give up some of their own $3 million fund balance for the good of the county.

“Their fund balance is our fund balance,” Commissioner Bobby Kuppers said then.

The irony, such as it was, went un-remarked upon at last week’s meeting.

County Commissioner Kevin Corbin, who previously served 20 years on the board of education, said he believes the state will impose a cut of about 8 percent for schools.

“We’re all going to have to live within our means,” Corbin said, adding there’s no way for the county to pick up the tab for state education cuts.

Also of concern to local leaders in Macon County is that Perdue’s proposed budget would force counties to pay for workers’ compensation for public school and community college employees. The state may also cut the county’s share of corporate income taxes.

Jackson and Haywood county commissioners held similar discussions last week. The N.C. Association of County Commissioners had sounded the alarm the week before, calling on counties to voice their concerns.

David Thompson, director of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, said it was “very disconcerting” that counties could be asked to tap their fund balances — saved up over the years often with an eye toward school construction or future building projects — as “the silver bullet to manage the state’s budget crisis.”

Haywood County commissioners passed a resolution last week opposing the state shift of funding duties, particularly for schools. Among proposals on the table: the state would take 75 percent of the county’s share of lottery money intended for schools and make counties pay for new school buses.

“The state said they aren’t going to have any new tax increase but they haven’t said anything about pushing the costs on to us and us having to do tax increases,” Haywood Commissioner Bill Upton said.

Despite its vibrant façade, downtown Waynesville hasn’t been immune to the economic recession.

So Richard Miller was surprised, to put it mildly, when he learned his downtown building doubled in value over the past five years — at least according to the county’s appraisers. Miller disagrees with their assessment.

The book value of Miller’s building on Main Street went from $431,000 to $800,000 in the recent countywide property revaluation.

Property values determine property taxes: the higher the value the higher the tax. And that’s what concerns Miller.

If his taxes go up, he’ll have to charge more in rent to cover the cost.

“Could the businesses stay in business if they had to pay that much more in rent?” Miller said. “I’m afraid one of my tenants would leave if I said rent goes up by that much a month.”

The Kitchen Shop and the Blue Owl art gallery occupy Miller’s building at the corner of Main and Church streets.

Most commercial leases automatically go up if property taxes go up, thanks to a clause built in to the lease for just this occasion. Merchants will then have little choice: either absorb the rent hike or pass it along in the form of higher prices to customers.

“The result? Fewer customers, fewer purchases, less profit, more overhead, and more and more doors closed,” said Jonnie Cure, a free market advocate and past downtown property owner. “Too many businesses come and go on Main Street in Waynesville as it is in this horrible economy.”

The steep increase witnessed by commercial property is the exception to the rule in the property revaluation. Residential homes and land largely went down, or at best increased slightly.

Canton saw significant hikes to commercial values as well: a 13 percent increase overall for the downtown district. If higher property taxes force up rent prices, it could break small businesses, said Charles Rathbone, owner of WNC Sign World in downtown Canton.

“The business owners here could not as a rule support that kind of increase,” said Rathbone. “They are struggling every day to keep the light bill paid.”

Rent is cheap in downtown Canton compared to Waynesville, but merchants are still operating in the margins, Rathbone said.

On average, property values in downtown Waynesville went up 28 percent, with the larger jumps seen on Main Street. Miller said Main Street has been singled out.

“Why is Main Street being punished for being successful?” Miller said.

Downtown Waynesville is a selling point for the whole county, said Buffy Phillips, director of the Downtown Waynesville Association.

“We are clearly doing something right,” Phillips said. “Realtors always say if they have a buyer who is on the fence, they drive them down Main Street to close the deal.”

It doesn’t seem fair that their success resulted in such large jumps in property values, which in turn will hurt the very merchants who are the life blood of downtown’s vibrant scene, Phillips said.

Main Street storefronts remain in high demand, however. Downtown Waynesville has only a handful of vacant storefronts, with only a couple on Main Street itself.

While downtown Canton has generally been flush with storefronts for lease in recent years, several have been snatched up lately. New downtown business that have just opened or are coming soon include a computer shop, an office for an outpatient physical therapy provider, an automotive shop and a new restaurant.

“It is beginning to fill,” Rathbone said.

What it means for taxes

In downtown Waynesville, higher property values carry a potential triple whammy: they not only determine county and town taxes, but also a special assessment to support the Downtown Waynesville Association, a self-promotion arm for downtown merchants.

Phillips said DWA will likely lower the tax rate in the Main Street district. That means that even though property values went up, the amount paid in taxes won’t go up by the same percentage.

At the county and town level, however, commercial property owners who saw their values go up shouldn’t expect a lower tax rate to offset the increase.

On average, property values flat lined. Although some obviously went up while others went down, the total value of all the property in the county is the same after the revaluation as it was five years ago.

How commercial is calculated

Commercial property is valued differently than residential homes and land. The values for homes and land are based on sales of similar property. But there are usually not enough sales of commercial buildings to establish an accurate baseline.

“It is hard to find commercial properties that are truly comparable,” said Ron McCarthy with RS&M Appraisal firm.

So instead, commercial property values are derived from the prevailing rents in an area. Even if the property isn’t being leased, appraisers calculate how much rent income the building would potentially generate if it was.

While residential homes and land were appraised by an in-house team of county appraisers, the county contracted with a private firm, RS&M Appraisal, to do commercial property.

Regardless of the rent-based appraisal formulas, Miller disagrees with his assessment. Rents have not gone up 28 percent in five years, so why did property values, Miller asked.

On the rise

Commercial property values increased in the latest Haywood County property appraisal. Here’s the increase for certain districts compared to five years ago.

Waynesville downtown: 27.9%

Canton downtown: 14.6%

Maggie Valley downtown: 8.8%

Clyde downtown: 3.8%

Russ Avenue in Waynesville: 9.5%

South Main Street in Waynesville: 3.6%

Champion Drive in Canton: 26.7%

This isn’t the easiest time to be a real estate agent in Jackson and Macon counties, not with the crippled housing market and a customer base that is, in most cases, hard pressed to find the dollars to buy new homes.

Nowhere is it tougher than the upscale communities of Cashiers and Highlands, a market catering to second- and third-home owners. Here, where houses just a few years ago routinely sold in the millions, the bottom has fallen out.

Terry Potts isn’t complaining. But, as the owner of four separate real estate offices in Highlands alone, Potts perhaps is experiencing even greater pain than most agents.

“In most cases, property has been selling for about half the tax value,” Potts said of the market in Highlands, adding that what has sold are, generally, bank foreclosures.

“I think that’s why they put it off,” Potts said. “And I do think the values are going to drop a good bit — if they truly use values of (properties) that have sold.”

“It” would be the property revaluations, now scheduled to take place in both Jackson and Macon counties in 2013. Countywide appraisals were last conducted in Jackson in 2008 and Macon in 2007, at practically the peak of the housing boom in Western North Carolina.

Macon County commissioners decided to postpone its revaluation from 2011 to 2013; and Jackson County recently opted to push its back one-year from 2012 to 2013. State law mandates revaluation takes place at least every eight years; both counties had been on four-year cycles.

The issue?

‘True’ market value

In both counties, the tax assessors predicted difficulties with calculating true market value when little property has sold. Bobby McMahan, Jackson County’s tax assessor, recently told commissioners one township with 4,000 parcels had just three property sales in three years — hardly enough to establish a baseline.

McMahan wanted commissioners to delay Jackson County’s revaluation until 2015. This would have meant, however, that taxpayers would continue paying taxes for several additional years on what are now hyper-assessed properties. Some residents, particularly those living in southern Jackson County, cried foul — and not just over the possibility of shouldering an unfairly large tax burden, but about the overall level of services the Cashiers area receives back.

“The emotional irritation is that there is a miniscule percentage coming back to southern Jackson County and these townships,” said Phillip Rogers, who lives near Cashiers in the Hamburg Township.

“I’m personally contributing property taxes on two houses … I don’t mind paying the taxes as much as I mind not getting a return on services,” Rogers said.

But even if property values are lowered, it’s unlikely to provide residents such as Rogers tax relief, as he knows. In light of falling property values, Jackson and Macon counties would have to raise the tax rate if they want to bring in the same amount of money.

“That’s true,” agreed interim Jackson County Manager Chuck Wooten of the options facing local leaders. “In order to be revenue neutral there would have to be an increase.”

Wooten estimated that staying revenue neutral in Jackson County would require a tax-rate increase of the current 28 cents per $100 valuation to the mid-30s.

The largest drop in property values, not surprisingly, is expected in the Glenville and Cashiers area — the same areas where they had risen so rapidly over the first part of the decade.

Norman West, a longtime real-estate agent, primarily works in Cullowhee, the fastest growing part of the county population-wise, according to the 2010 Census.

Even so, things aren’t good, West said, “but we tend to be a little more insulated than some other communities” because of Western Carolina University.

West said what Jackson County has yet to truly contend with is the crash of high-end developments — granted, many lots in such developments already have been through foreclosure, but he believes there are many more to come. The fallout from the Great Recession isn’t over.

“These are uncharted waters,” West said.

Things that roll downhill

Jack Debnam, a real-estate agent who serves as chairman of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, acknowledged local leaders have been placed in an unenviable position.

To offset the lower property values when revaluation starts in 2013, they will either have to raise taxes or cut county services.

Commissioners might face that dilemma sooner than 2013, however. The county already faces a budget shortfall. Wooten has asked each department to cut 5 percent from their budgets in the coming fiscal year.

There is every likelihood state leaders will shift portions of the $2.4 billion budget deficit they are facing downhill to local governments. After that, there’s nowhere downhill to go — again, local leaders are left to slash services or raise taxes.

“We just don’t know where the state’s going to put us,” Debnam said.

In Macon County, Bob Holt, a Franklin resident and real-estate instructor for Southwestern Community College, said during the first quarter of this year, sale prices were running at 63 percent of the assessed value. He expects to see values drop after this evaluation.

Richard Lightner, Macon County’s tax assessor, said his office could ask commissioners to delay the revaluation again, up to 2015, but that he doesn’t plan to do that.

“I think we need to adjust to where reality is right now,” Lightner said. “The whole premise of doing a revaluation is to equalize the market values.”

Lightner said the lower- and median-priced homes are generally stable — it’s the high end, speculative markets that are down.

While some counties bring in a specialized appraisal firm to conduct the revaluation, others do it in-house with their own staff. Macon County has done theirs in-house in the past, but Jackson is contemplating bringing the reval in-house for the first time.

Lightner said Jackson is likely to “have a difficult time” if it does. Macon is well along in the revaluation process — some 30 percent of property values are done. Jackson is just starting.

Additionally, Macon has experience doing revaluations in-house; Jackson County does not.

“They’re starting from scratch right now,” Lightner said. “I wouldn’t want to do one like that.”

If Jackson commissioners insist on sticking to its target of 2013, Lightner said he expects Jackson County tax-office staff will be unable to make as many on-site evaluations as Macon County, and instead will be forced to rely more on computer-generated assessments.

Haywood County’s property revaluation was a massive undertaking: appraisers had to lay eyes on 50,000 properties, from condos to fast-food joints to farms, and judge whether they had gone up or down in value over the past five year.

Hundreds of property sales from 2009 and 2010 set the bar for new values on the county’s property rolls. But just because a similar home across town sold for $200,000, does it mean yours would also?

In the world of real estate, location is everything, whether it’s a few blocks down or the other side of the ridge.

This year, the county developed a highly-engineered method called “neighborhood delineation.”

The formula carves the county up into nearly 1,000 neighborhoods. From there, the county essentially wrote its own computer program to calculate property values, taking dozens of variables into account. Each variable takes the value up or down a notch, but is only as good as the baseline assigned to the neighborhood.

The methodology is impressive, said Randy Siske, a Realtor and president of the Haywood County Board of Realtors.

“The last time we had a revaluation, the biggest complaint from the real estate community was they were comparing apples and oranges,” Siske said. “I think they really made an effort to compare apples and apples.”

Before, the county was divided into just 17 townships. All of Maggie Valley was lumped together, or all of Bethel.

Now, clusters of just 30 or 40 similar properties make up a neighborhood.

David Francis, Haywood County tax collector, pointed to a map of Hazelwood where a conspicuous donut hole appears in the middle of one neighborhood. A condo unit along a residential street was carved out and made its own “neighborhood” rather than lumping it in with the houses around it.

“That’s how close and how drilled down this is,” Francis said.

When county’s appraisal team reached the final stage of revaluation — a drive-by of every property on the books to double check their formulas — they had identified some 700 neighborhoods. But during their final drive-bys they kept creating more and more.

One appraiser trolling the back roads of Fines Creek left in the morning to survey what she thought was one neighborhood and came back to the office with three: Betsy’s Gap, Price Town and Turkey Creek.

“They were finding out that some neighborhoods were a little broad so they broke them down further,” said Haywood County Tax Assessor Judy Ballard said.

And further and further apparently, until they had added another 250 neighborhoods by the time reval was done.

“Neighborhood delineation” was lot of work on the front end — entering not just the number of bedrooms, square footage and whether a home has a garage — but also the school district, proximity to town parks or mountain views.

Those appealing their property values may have a harder time making their case.

“I think it is going to be more difficult for property owners to get through the appeal process,” Siske said. “I’m not saying there aren’t properties out there that need to be appealed. But finding a property that is $100,000 off in value I think it is very much less likely.”

It’s what everyone wants to know: is their neighbor’s house worth more or less than their own?

It’s not hard to find out at the county’s mapping site, where there’s a plethora of property revaluation data to keep even the most obsessed followers of local real estate busy for days.

Here’s how to navigate the county’s online mapping and tax information.

How to view property information:

• Go to http://maps.haywoodnc.net/gisweb/default.htm. (Or, from Haywood County’s home page, click on “maps” on the left.

• Search for your parcel by name, or click on “PIN” to search using the PIN number from your property notice.

• Your property will be highlighted in blue. You can also see your total assessed value, acreage, and so forth.

• For more complete details of the property, such as number of bedrooms, heated square feet, etc., click on “view tax card” on the lower left.

• To see the value of your neighbors’ property, click on “adjoiners” on the lower left. A list of neighboring parcels will appear. As you scroll over the list, the parcel on the map will be highlighted. Click “details” for the parcel you want to see info for. Click “back to search results” to get back to the list.

• To see the details of any parcel, first click on the “identify” button across the top, then click on the parcel you want to see.

• To move around your neighborhood, click on the symbol of the hand across the top and then use the tool to drag the map around.

How to find recent real estate sales:

• To see what recent sales in your neighborhood were used as a baseline for your property revaluation, pull up your own parcel (using directions above.)

• Click on “select viewable layers” (in the black bar just above the map).

• In the list on the left hand side, check the boxes for “revaluation neighborhoods” and “valid sales.” (Don’t uncheck anything that is already checked.)

• Recent sales used to determine property values in your neighborhood will be outlined in red. You may have to zoom out to see them.

• To see the details of any of the parcels, first click on the “identify” button across the top, then click on the parcel you want to see.

How to find old property values:

• Only the latest property values from the revaluation show up with the parcels on the map site.

• To find the old values for a parcel, go to http://www.haywoodnc.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=960&Itemid=134 (Or, from Haywood County’s home page, click on “taxes online” on the left side.

• Type in the name of the property owner.

• If the property owner owns multiple parcels, they will all come up and you will then have to select the one you want.

• When you select a property from the list, last year’s tax card will come up, which shows the value of the property last year.

With a clipboard under one arm and a giant measuring spool under the other, Greg West climbed into a county-marked truck last Wednesday, cranked the engine and consulted a large Waynesville map on the seat beside him.

“Today we’re hitting Blink Bonny,” he said, planting an index finger on street in a traditional middle class suburb.

West would spend the next eight hours slowly cruising Blink Bonny’s neighborhood streets, eyeing each house from the curb or even loitering in the driveway for telltale signs of its worth.

If anyone’s home, they might mistake him for a stalker. But in fact West is part of a team of Haywood County property appraisers tasked with assigning a new dollar value to each home, lot and tract of land — a dollar value which in turn will determine how much you pay in property taxes.

It’s been five years since the last countywide property assessment. In the past, you could count on values to go up with each reval, but it’s a different ballgame this time. The volatile real estate market has made it tougher for West and his compatriots to pin down accurate values.

With fewer homes selling, there’s less of a baseline to go by. And just because a home sold for one price six months ago doesn’t mean that’s still what it is worth today.

The county essentially wrote its own computer program to calculate property values, taking dozens of variables into account before spitting out a number. The finely-customized formula carves the county up into 700 neighborhoods of like homes. It was lot of work on the front end — entering not just the number of bedrooms, square footage and whether a home has a garage — but also the school district, proximity to town parks or mountain views.

West’s property drive-by is now a time of reckoning as the three-year process concludes. West and the rest of his team are laying a pair of human eyes on each house to make sure their computer-generated values are right.

The property appraisers are in the home stretch of that task, having visited nearly all the county’s 50,000 parcels from Crabtree to Cruso, from Balsam to Beaverdam, from Max Patch to Maggie.

The verdict so far?

“It’s been fairly accurate. We put quite a bit of work into it with neighborhood delineation. It gave us a pretty good start,” West said.

Testing the formula is not hard. They visit homes in the neighborhood that have actually sold and compare the actual selling price to the computer-generated value.

In Blink Bonny, West’s first test of their formula was a 3.5-acre tract. The computer pegged its market value at $77,800. It recently sold for $77,500, a mere $300 difference.

“Our formula fell right on the money,” said Ron McCarthy, a property appraisal consultant with RSN Appraisal assisting the county with the revaluation.

McCarthy downplayed any role luck played. They are just that good, he said.

“Luck is the residue of design,” McCarthy quoted.

But to make sure, West pointed his car a couple of streets over where a home had recently sold. The computer formula put the home at $315,000 but it sold in real life for $365,000. Suddenly things weren’t looking so rosy. West set out to uncover the discrepancy.  

He pored over the county’s data sheets for the home and found the culprit. It had been given a quality grade of average — a “C” on a scale from F to A+.

But this three-story house sported stacked stone, beadboard ceilings in a wrap-around porch, octagon attic windows and other classy features. Compared to the brick ranch homes on the rest of the street, a “C” rating was too low.

He changed the quality to a B+. Running the formula again but with the corrected data, it came up within a few thousand dollars of nailing the real selling price.

West was relieved. The formula itself wasn’t wrong — just the data that was plugged into it. With several dozen variables factored into the formula, if any of them are wrong, the value it spits out will likewise be wrong.

And that’s precisely West’s job during the drive-bys: to ensure the underlying data for each house is right.

Does the home have a new garage or deck? Has it fallen into disrepair? Is it junked up with a sofa on the front porch? Has the gravel driveway now been paved?

At one home, West did a double-take after spying a second-story over the garage with curtains and blinds visible inside the window.

“Looks like they added a bonus room,” West said, something his sketch of the home in the county’s records didn’t show.

West recalibrate the home’s square feet, triggering a higher value.

Three doors up, West’s keen eye struck again. A brick patio near the front door seemed in mint condition — no moss stains on the pavers, which you’d expect with a ‘70s era house. Either they had recently invested in a pressure washer or the patio was new.

West lifted his tape measure from the back seat and climbed out of the truck. He rung the bell and met a particularly helpful homeowner who not only confirmed that the front patio was new but volunteered that there was another new patio out back. Both would boost the home’s value.

“He had a keen eye to notice that,” McCarthy said of West’s detective work. “That’s why we do the drive-by.”

McCarthy put his own skills to work at the next house in a just-for-fun blind match-up against the computer formula. He sized up the house from the car window, glanced at the sketch of its footprint and threw out his best guess. He was just a few thousand dollars off from the computer-generated value of $300,000.

That likewise bodes well for the county’s modeling — the computer formula came up with the same value as a seasoned appraiser on the ground.

Yet there’s all sorts of factors that might lead appraisers to tweak your home value during the drive-bys. If the neighborhood is uniform — homes of same quality and condition — it’s an easy day.

“If it’s in-town homes on quarter-acre lots, you can just go bam, bam, bam, bam,” West said.

But there’s usually more variation than that.

New windows and a freshly shingled roof? This could earn you brownie points for your home’s condition, and a slight bump in value. Sagging gutters and mildewed sills could bring you down a notch.

“This is like the quality control,” McCarthy said of their work.

The labor intensive process can seem never ending, and indeed as soon as this reval is finished they county will soon start ramping up for the next one another four or five years away.

Attention Haywood County property owners

Start watching your mailbox in March for a notice from the county reflecting the new and current market value of your home.

In North Carolina, counties are required to reassess property values every few years. The revaluation — or “reval” — is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of your property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying their fair share come tax day.

Don’t assume that your property taxes will go up or down just because your property values do, however. Haywood County commissioners won’t set the actual tax rate until June. The tax rate is then applied to your property value to determine your tax bill for 2011.

With a clipboard under one arm and a giant measuring spool under the other, Greg West climbed into a county-marked truck last Wednesday, cranked the engine and consulted a large Waynesville map on the seat beside him.

“Today we’re hitting Blink Bonny,” he said, planting an index finger on a traditional middle class suburb.

West would spend the next eight hours slowly cruising their neighborhood streets, eyeing each house from the driveway for tell-tale signs of its worth. If anyone’s inside, they might easily mistake him for a stalker loitering at the curb.

West is part of the team of Haywood County property appraisers tasked with assigning a new dollar value to each home, lot and tract of land — a dollar value which in turn will determine how much you pay in property taxes.

It’s been five years since the last countywide property assessment. In the past, you could count on values to go up, but it’s a different ballgame this time. The volatile real estate market has made it tougher for West and his compatriots to pin down accurate values.

With fewer homes selling, there’s less of a baseline to go by. And just because a home sold for one price six months ago doesn’t mean that’s still what it is worth today.

The county essentially wrote its own computer program to calculate property values, taking dozens of variables into account before spitting out a number. It was lot of work on the front end and involved carving the county up into 700 neighborhoods of like homes.

West’s property drive-by is now a time of reckoning as the three-year process concludes. West is laying a pair of human eyes on each house to make sure their computer-generated value is right.

The property appraisers are in the home stretch of that task, having visited nearly all the county’s 50,000 parcels from Crabtree to Cruso, from Balsam to Beaverdam, from Max Patch to Maggie.

The verdict so far?

“It’s been fairly accurate. We put quite a bit of work into it with neighborhood delineation. It gave us a pretty good start,” West said.

Testing the formula is not hard. The first order of business with each of his daily drive-bys is to visit any homes in the neighborhood that may have actually sold. He compares the computer-generated value with what it actually sold for.

In Blink Bonny, West’s first test of their formula was a 3.5-acre tract. The county had pegged its market value at $77,800. In the real world, it recently sold for $77,500. A mere $300 apart.

“Our formula fell right on the money,” said Ron McCarthy, a property appraisal consultant with RSN Appraisal assisting the county with the revaluation.

McCarthy protested any role luck played. They are just that good, he said.

To make sure, West pointed his car a couple of streets over where a home had recently sold. The computer formula put the home at $315,000 but it sold in real life for $365,000. Suddenly things weren’t looking so rosy. West set out to uncover the discrepancy.  

West pored over the county’s data for the home and found the culprit. It had been given a quality grade of average — a “C” on a scale from F to A+.

But this three-story house sported stacked stone, beadboard ceilings in a wrap-around porch, octagon attic windows and other posh features. Compared to the brick ranch homes on the rest of the street, a “C” rating was too low.

He changed the quality to a B+. Using the same formula, but with the corrected data, it was now within a few thousand dollars.

West was relieved. The formula itself wasn’t wrong — just the data that was plugged into it

With several dozen variables factored into the formula, if any of them are wrong, the value it spits out will likewise be wrong. Thus West’s job during the drive-bys is mostly to ensure the data for each house is right.

Does the home have a new garage or deck? Has it fallen into disrepair? Is it junked up with a sofa on the front porch? Has the gravel driveway now been paved?

At one home, West spotted the telltale sign of a finished bonus room over the family’s garage: curtains and blinds over an upstairs window. The homeowners had added finished square feet, and that updated data triggered a higher value.

Three doors up, West’s keen eye struck again. A brick patio at the side of the house looked remarkably clean and lacked any sign of chipping and cracking you would expect for a patio dating to the home’s construction. Either they had recently invested in a pressure washer or the patio was new.

West lifted the tape measure from the back seat and climbed out. He rung the bell, and a particularly helpful home owner revealed that not only was the front patio new but there was another new patio out back. Both would boost the home’s value.

“He had a keen eye to notice that,” McCarthy said. “That’s why we do the drive-by.”

In a blind match-up between McCarthy and the computer formula, he sized up a house from the car window, glanced at the sketch of its footprint and threw out his best guess. He was just a few thousand off from the computer on a $300,000 house.

That likewise bodes well for the county’s modeling — the computer formula came up with the same value as a seasoned appraiser on the ground.

Yet there’s all sorts of tweaking that might lead West to adjust your home value during the drive-bys. If the neighborhood is uniform — homes of same quality and condition — it’s an easy day.

“If it’s in town homes on quarter-acre lots, you can just go bam, bam, bam, bam,” West said.

But there’s usually more variation than that.

New windows and a freshly shingled roof? This could earn you brownie points for your home’s condition, and a slight bump in value. Sagging gutters and mildew-stained flashing could bring you down a notch.

Views are particularly tricky. When the majority of a neighborhood has mountain views, the view factor is already built in to the baseline of home values.

If you are the lone house without a view, you will see your value reflect that.

Of, if you are the lone house with a view in a  neighborhood that otherwise lacks them, plan on a requisite bump up.

Attention Haywood County property owners

Start watching your mailbox in March for a notice from the county with your new property value reflecting the current market value of your home.

In North Carolina, counties are required to reassess property values every few years. The revaluation — or “reval” — is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of your property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying their fair share when paying property taxes.

Don’t assume that your taxes will go up or down just because your property values have, however. Haywood County commissioners won’t set the actual tax rate until June.

Property owners in Haywood County will soon learn how their home and land values weathered the recession.

Every home, lot and tract of land in the county — all 50,000 of them — have been reappraised to reflect the current real estate market.

Some will see their property value go up compared to the last countywide appraisal in 2006. But a good number will find their property values have gone down. Start watching your mailbox in March for a notice from the county with new property values.

While the county isn’t yet saying what folks should expect — whether property values as a whole went up or down — it’s not rocket science to make an educated prediction.

“I would think the normal market price is going to drop, on some properties as much as 30 percent,” according to Bruce McGovern, real estate broker and owner of McGovern Property Management and Real Estate Sales.

Of course, it will vary by the type of property. Higher priced homes are more likely to drop, while median priced homes have held their value better and may see increases.

What’s likely to take the biggest hit?

“Vacant subdivision lots have come way down,” McGovern said. So has land.

McGovern pointed to 40 acres he just sold for $160,000 — far less than the $400,000 it was initially listed for four years ago.

But it’s not necessarily a bad thing, McGovern said. WNC was a victim of an inflated real estate market five years ago. Now, values are more realistic.

“I think it is a true adjustment that needed to be done,” McGovern said. “We need to have correct appraisals on property.”

Final countdown

A team of four county appraisers is still wrapping up the two-year process with a final drive-by of every piece of property. Snow in December and January set this final step back a few weeks, said David Francis, director of the county tax department. Francis said his staff has been working long hours, including Saturdays, to get it wrapped up.

“It is a complicated process,” Francis said. “It is something we take extremely seriously. We want to make this as accurate and as fair as possible.”

In North Carolina, counties are required to conduct a periodic mass appraisal of real estate — called a revaluation, or “reval” for short. Property taxes are based on property values — the more your property is worth the more taxes you pay. The reval is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of your property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying their fair share come tax day.

Haywood County commissioners will set the property tax rate in June, which is related to but not contingent on the results of the reval.

This reval will be a different story compared to the last reval in 2006 at the height of the mountain land rush when property owners saw their values double, triple or even quadruple.

The county actually postponed its revaluation from 2010 to 2011 because the real estate market was still in flux, making it difficult for appraisers to determine new market values for property accurately.

Haywood County is one of the first mountain counties to wade into a reval since the real estate crash.

Swain County did a reval two years ago but tossed it out rather than enact it. Swain is now shooting for 2012 instead. Macon County was on schedule to do a reval this year, but postponed it until 2013.

Jackson County is still in limbo about whether and by how much to postpone its reval.