Assessments

David Fitzgibbon was let go.

Kirkpatrick acknowledged “There were an awful lot of errors.”

That’s why he and Fitzgibbon planned to use small increases over several years to protect homeowners whose property data was incorrect.

No, it wasn’t strictly legal. But the Department of Revenue only assesses the assessors every three years, so the county “could have legally gotten away with that,” Kirkpatrick said.

Dwight Robinson, the current chief appraiser in Fulton County, said when he took over the job, he was faced with the question of whether to postpone nearly 320,000 valuations while waiting for them all to be correct.

Yes, he said, there are errors. But the county’s appeals process allows residents to call them to the chief appraiser’s attention and work them out.

If he had waited, he said, the shock from high appraisals would have been even worse.

And Robinson said he wouldn’t be “inclined to follow” a plan for helping homeowners that wasn’t legal.

“I couldn’t wait until 2019 to reassess parcels,” he said. “That would’ve been even harder to do.”

Other counties don’t wait 20 years to look closely at their housing stock.

“One or more years with no reevaluation can certainly put you behind the 8-ball,” said Stewart Oliver, the chief appraiser in Gwinnett.

“We analyze our data constantly.”

Stephen White, the Cobb chief appraiser, said it’s hard to keep up when there are distressed sales — like foreclosures — skewing the data. But for the past few years, the market has made more sense.

“Why are the other counties not going through this?” he asked. “We have been doing a good job keeping up-to-date with the marketplace.”

Members of Fulton County’s legislative delegation are looking for ways to avoid repeating this year’s problems.

At a meeting Monday, Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, said he has already drafted legislation that would limit the tax increase residents see each year.

The bills emulate the 3 percent cap both Fulton County and Sandy Springs have in place and would apply to Atlanta and Fulton County schools, as well as all the other cities in Fulton.

School tax exemptions for senior citizens, limits on huge value increases in gentrifying neighborhoods and requirements that properties are assessed annually could also be required.

Albers said it his he “absolute intention” to pass multiple changes in Fulton next year. From there, he said, the bills could be applied statewide.

Until then, the onus is on the taxing authorities to decide what to do to help ease the pain for homeowners.

A survey of Fulton governments showed that many intended to reduce the burden on taxpayers. In Fulton County, commission chairman John Eaves said he intends to maintain a tax rate that keeps the county’s take revenue neutral.