Property appraisal representatives will be making the rounds in Dougherty County

ALBANY – Dougherty County residences and businesses can expect visitors checking out their property starting this week as the county undertakes a countywide property revaluation process.

Representatives from Georgia Mass Appraisal Solutions & Services (GMASS) were expected to start on Wednesday visiting properties throughout the county.

The county sent out an alert on Tuesday to notify residents of the presence of GMASS representatives. Those representatives will carry identification, and property owners are encouraged to ask for identification to verify their legitimacy and may call the county Tax Assessor’s Office to have questions answered.

The revaluation of property is a process that takes place every so often to ensure that properties are fairly valued for tax purposes.

“It’s been seven years since it’s been done,” Dougherty County Commissioner Ed Newsome, who is a member of the commission’s Finance Committee, said. “When your tax digest gets to a certain point, you’ve got to do it. We’re on the borderline right now. It was time for us to have a full evaluation.”

Last year, the county enlisted a company to conduct a survey on the value of cellular phone towers located in the county and found that they were significantly undervalued for tax purposes, the commissioner said.

“We were leaving $18 million on the table,” he said.

Similarly, the countywide revaluation will seek to capture the true market value of properties and businesses. In some cases, this will identify instances where houses, business or other properties are undervalued because of improvements that have been made but not shown up on the tax digest.

“That will all be captured,” Newsome said. “They still have issues with pools. People put in pools and don’t permit them. We’re missing a lot of revenue with different things. We do have to capture our tax digest”

A number of individuals also made home improvements during the COVID-19 pandemic that have not been included in property assessments, he said.

In some instances, the property will be valued at a lesser amount than the previous assessment.

The work will not be completed in time to be reflected for the 2025 Fiscal Year, which begins on June 30, but it should be in effect for the 2025-2026 budget year, according to Newsome.

Property taxes account for the bulk of the revenue that pays for services provided by the county.

Newsome said there is no way to know what the total addition to the overall county tax digest the revaluation will reveal, but his guess is that it will fall between an increase of 3% and 7%.

Once the updated property values are gathered, the commission can make use of the additional revenue, roll back the tax millage rate or some combination of the two.

“People get sort of upset that their taxes go up,” Newsome said. “I get more calls about that, but I remind them that it was your school tax that went up. Your Dougherty County taxes didn’t go up.”

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