- Property reassessments in all three counties were spurred by a lawsuit about education funding which relies heavily upon property taxes.
- Completion of the data collection in Sussex County was planned for this July, but only about 47% of the properties have been visited by assessors.
- No reassessment delays have been reported by Kent or New Castle counties.
Sussex County’s property reassessments will take a year longer than planned due to staffing shortages at the company conducting the project.
On Tuesday, county officials announced the change in the schedule “because of higher-than-expected staff turnover” at Tyler Technologies.
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Sussex finance director Gina A. Jennings said the county’s size, the largest in the state, is also a factor. Sussex is about 1,196 square miles, according to the U.S. Census, compared with 798 for Kent and 494 for New Castle.
“With so many parcels and limited staffing, it is taking considerably longer for our vendor to do the necessary work,” said Jennings. “We want this done right – accurately and fairly – and the year extension will allow Tyler Technologies to do that.”
Over 90,000 properties in Sussex have been visited by Tyler data collectors, about 47% of the total. The data collection started in October 2021 and was scheduled to be finished this July.
The reassessment process was set to be wrapped up in 2024, in time for tax bills to be issued in late summer, ahead of the annual Sept. 30 tax payment deadline.
That timeline has shifted a year, to 2025.
No delays reported in Kent or New Castle counties
Kent and New Castle counties are also using Tyler Technologies to reassess properties, but neither county has reported any changes to the assessment schedule.
Michael McFarlane, appraisal senior project supervisor for Tyler Technologies, confirmed Wednesday that reassessments in New Castle and Kent are on schedule.
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In New Castle, the plan is to mail new assessments to property owners starting in November 2024, using these values to calculate new tax bills starting with 2025.
In Kent County, notification of new values is scheduled to be mailed this November, with the assessment appeal filing deadline of March 15, 2024, and the property tax bills going out later in 2024.
Why are properties being reassessed in Delaware?
The reassessment project that was triggered by an education funding lawsuit filed against the state and all three counties in 2018 by Delawareans for Educational Opportunity, the NAACP Delaware State Conference Branches and the city of Wilmington.
Education funding relies heavily upon property taxes which are determined by property assessments and tax rates.
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The Delaware Chancery Court ruled in 2020 that property tax systems in each of the state’s three counties were unconstitutional, not keeping with Delaware law.
Sussex County uses valuations from 1974, New Castle County from 1983 and Kent County from 1987.
“The outdated valuations mean that owners of the same general class of property pay effective rates that are quite different. Owners whose properties have appreciated more pay a lower effective rate than owners whose properties have appreciated less,” the court stated.
The case was settled in 2021, with the counties agreeing to conduct property reassessments.
What’s done during a property reassessment?
Data collectors from Tyler Technologies in marked vests with ID cards are visiting each property in the tax records to examine the properties and compare what they see with what’s in the tax records. Data collectors may ask residents questions about their home such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms or the year it was built.
The purpose is to get as much information about the property to accurately compute its value.
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After the reassessments, property owners will receive notices about their new assessments and property taxes. Owners have the right to appeal their assessment.
For more information on Sussex County’s reassessment project, see the website empower.tylertech.com/Sussex-County-Delaware.html
For details on Kent County’s reassessment, see the website empower.tylertech.com/kent-county-delaware.html
For New Castle County’s reassessment details, see the website empower.tylertech.com/New-Castle-County-Delaware.html
Reporter Ben Mace covers real estate and development stories. Reach him at rmace@gannett.com.
