Tax burden eased for victims
By Steve Herring
Published in News on August 16, 2017 5:50 AM
Wayne County taxpayers who as of Jan. 1 had property that was damaged during Hurricane Matthew, but not yet repaired, could receive a break on their tax bill.
Taxpayers who do not receive an adjustment, but think that they should, need to contact the Wayne County Tax Office at 919-731-1478 or 919-731-1461.
Hurricane Matthew struck in October 2016, and the property must have been unrepaired as of Jan. 1 of this year.
"We did the same approach that we did during Hurricane Floyd," Tax Administrator Alan Lumpkin told Wayne County commissioners during their Tuesday session. "But this time we had a lot more flooding than we had in Floyd. So there are people who have not been through this before.
"What happened during the month of January, which is our listing time, we had a lot of citizens who came in at that time and told us about the flooding (damage) that happened. That is what they are supposed to do."
But during that time a lot of people were still displaced, and the last thing on their mind was to come and talk to the tax office, he said.
The tax office sent out appraisers during the last two weeks of December and the first week of January to look at properties, he said.
January is when the tax office takes a "snapshot" of property in the county to determine the property values for the rest of the year, Lumpkin said.
"Whatever is there Jan. 1 is what we tax," he said.
The appraisers started in Seven Springs and worked all the way up the Neuse River area through Goldsboro to near Princeton.
The appraisers also went to isolated areas, such as Hood Drive in the Grantham community, that flooded.
"We adjusted the values based on what we saw," Lumpkin. "We saw some properties that had insulation and ductwork damage all of the way up to the whole house was gone," he said. "We made adjustments accordingly."
Those adjustments will be reflected on the tax bills that residents will begin receiving during the next few weeks, Lumpkin said.
Billing was completed Monday and bill should be in the mail by Monday.
"Did we get 100 percent of the adjustments? Probably not," Lumpkin said. "We did the best we could working with planning and inspections offices of the city and county.
"So I encourage people, if you get your tax bill, and you had flooding damage that was not repaired by Jan. 1, you need to call our office if you don't see an adjustment."
The county can send appraisers out to look at the property after the fact, he said.
"Those adjustments will stand (for the rest of the year), and we will go back out at the end of the year, look at all of the properties again," he said. "All of the repaired properties we will put back to proper tax value.
"The ones that are still damaged, they will get the same adjustment the next year until either FEMA buys them out and the property demolished or the damages repaired."