Tax recap completed

By Greg Bird
birdman@tmcvoice.com

McCreary County PVA Bruce Lominac stated this week that the finalized recap of property tax values has been completed and sent to the Department of revenue for finalization.
Earlier this month it was reported that a computer issue caused a delay when all tangible property entries were inexplicably dropped from the list, forcing the PVA staff to manually re-enter the data to finalize the assessment.
The end result is citizens will most likely not see their tax bills until some time in November, as opposed to October as had been the case in recent years.
Lominac said the October 1st date had been a target date for his office, but had not been the case before he assumed the office in 2006.
“Historically, tax bills were not sent out until later in the year,” Lominac said. “When I took office we worked hard to get the bills out earlier, and maintained that until this year when circumstances beyond our control forced the delay.”

On a positive note, Lominac added, the final assessment for the county came in over $361 million, up about $5 million from the previous year. That increase in assessment value could mean local taxing entities could elect to lower their tax rate for the year while still maintaining the same level of revenue.
The Fiscal Court, along with special taxing districts and School Board will soon be able to set their tax rates for the year after the Department of Revenue and Department of Education, respectively, review the final assessment and send the suggested tax rates to the governing bodies.
At next month’s meeting the taxing districts and Fiscal Court are expected to present their rates. Once that is finalized, along with the School Board’s tax rate, the bills can then be printed by the County Clerk before being mailed out by the Sheriff.
Lominac said he expected the bills to be ready for mailing in November.
The delay could have an affect on budgets for public agencies who rely on the tax revenues late in the budget year.