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elected Commissioner of the Revenue- Beverly Atkins in Rappahannock.
Locally, the Commissioner of the Revenue’s office looks over the state report and verifies it- verifies that the tracts described are real, are in the county and the price figures are accurate. If all is in order, Atkins approves it and sends it back to the state. As commissioner Atkins explains it, if the median ratio of official assessment to actual sale price drops below 70 percent, the state commands a countywide reassessment. Even if property prices are not changing much, every locality must reassess periodically anyway, regardless of how that study turns out. Rural areas like ours have to do it at least every six years, and more populous areas more often. If a county doesn’t carry it out, the state withholds money due the county from sources like local alcohol revenues until the reassessment is done.
For practical purposes, rising land values almost always mean reassessments happen more often than the minimum. And with the housing market going like it has lately - in the words of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan “at a minimum, there is some froth in the market”- the cycle has sped up.
“This is the shortest cycle that I can remember” noted Atkins, recalling that the last
95.6%