Confusion surfaces over parish property assessment

Henry McCoy was shocked when he opened his property assessment notice last week.

The value of his specialty printing business located in the heart downtown Ruston had increased 39% since his last notice eight years ago; the value of his residence jumped 20%.

“It’s just more taxes due at the end of the year,” McCoy said.

McCoy is among approximately 9,000 Lincoln Parish residential and commercial property owners, most of whom have received reassessment notices from the parish assessor’s office.

Only property owners whose holdings increased 15% or more in assessed value received notices.

Some of those took to social media and said their assessments had doubled since the last accounting. But the computer-generated notices don’t show that it’s been eight years since the last reassessment in 2016.

In fact, they show only “current year” and “previous year.” That’s apparently led some property owners to conclude their reassessment is from 2023 to 2024.

It isn’t. It’s from 2016 to 2024.

Louisiana law requires reassessments to be done every four years to determine whether residential and commercial property values have gone up or down. The assessments figure into how much property tax the owner pays.

But because of the COVID- 19 pandemic, Lincoln Parish didn’t do a 2020 reassessment.

When retiring Assessor Sheila Bordelon stepped down early, current Assessor Billy McBride took office in June 2020, five months before the term to which he was elected in the fall of 2019 was set to begin.

By then, there wasn’t time to do a reassessment and get data ready for the tax notices that typically go out in November, he said.

As it turned out, the 2020 notices were delayed anyway because of actions blamed on the then-parish treasurer.

But even before the pandemic, property values were beginning to increase. News stories from 2016 showed some assessments jumped 15% or more since the previous reassessment in 2012.

Fast forward to 2024, a reassessment year.

“Some land went up. Some land went down. Some houses went up. Some houses went down,” McBride said.

In Louisiana, land is assessed at 10% of fair market value. Residential structures are also assessed at 10% of fair market value, while commercial structures are assessed at 15% of fair market value.

So why did some owners see significant jumps in their assessments?

Increased valuations generally reflect changes in market conditions since the last reassessment.

Location and comparative sales are primary factors used in determining an assessment. To some extent, those sales prices are driven by construction costs. Building costs nationwide are up almost 40% since the pandemic, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

In Louisiana, home prices have gone up around 11% just since last year, one online market review showed.

Lincoln Parish is divided into five market areas: Ruston, Grambling, Choudrant, Simsboro, and Dubach.

Market areas are divided into neighborhoods. That’s where sales comparison comes in. McBride said his staff calculates assessed value based on a three-year sales analysis of similar homes or land in a given area.

It’s possible for property values to go down, depending on topography and desirability, and structure values to still go up.

“It all has to do with sales,” McBride said.

Are the increases property owners are seeing reasonable for the eight-year post-pandemic stretch?

“I believe they are,” McBride said.

Generally, increased assessments mean higher property taxes.

“If your assessment went up, you’re going to pay more,” McBride said.

But assessments are only part of the equation. The other factor is millages that voters have approved. McBride’s office does not set those millage rates, nor does it levy or collect taxes.

Lincoln Parish property, or ad valorem, taxes generated $45.4 million in 2023. The revenue is split among the parish school board, police jury, library, sheriff’s department, municipalities, and the assessor’s office based on millage rates for each entity.

More than half of those tax collections go to the school board — it has the most voter-approved millages on the books.

State law mandates the tax collected in the year following a reassessment is adjusted so that it is equal to the tax collected the previous year on the same property tax base.

That means, in reassessment years like 2024, taxing bodies must review their millages, and lower them — called roll back — to offset increases in revenue caused by increase assessed values.

But the taxing bodies can then immediately raise — called “rolling forward” — the millage back to a legally approved maximum.

Parish taxing bodies are in the process of doing that now. Once that’s done, those decisions must be approved by Louisiana’s Legislative Auditor before McBride can sign off on 2024 tax bills being printed.

This year’s tax notices are expected to go out in November.

Meantime, downtown office building owner Dean Norton said he understands the 32% increase in his business assessment is driven by sales.

Nevertheless, “I just can’t see where things are more valuable now than they were in 2020 for a number of reasons,” he said.

Norton said he may consider raising tenants’ rent to cover his increased cost, something he hasn’t done in three years.

Property owners do have recourse. If they disagree with their assessment, they can call the assessor’s office at 251-5140, or go by at 307 North Homer Street by Aug. 29. If they’re still not satisfied, property owners can appeal to the Board of Review — comprising all members of the Lincoln Parish Police Jury — by Sept. 3.