Businessmen Jimmy Henderson and Dynamite Kirk went to the Leflore County Board of Supervisors Monday looking for a tax break on a shuttered factory they own, but they went away with only a promise of reconsideration next year.
Henderson said he and Kirk bought the former Raybestos building on Dec. 22, 2010, for $400,000. A closing statement showed the annual tax bill to be about $16,000.
However, that amount was based on the tax exemption Raybestos had, according to Tax Assessor Leroy Ware. When the operation, later renamed Friction Holdings, was closed in 2009, the exemption went with it. The tax bill increased to more than $47,000 for 2010.
Ware said Raybestos bought the building for $1.8 million in 2006. He said when his office reviewed the property for 2011 taxes, it reduced the assessed value to the current $1.5 million, which lowered the taxes to $37,000.
He said no mistake was made and, therefore, he could not recommend lowering the taxes. The Board of Supervisors has authority to lower taxes at its discretion, but its policy has been to make changes only when an error is made, Ware said.
He told the board he will look at the property for 2012, and Henderson said Ware has already promised to lower the taxes then.
Property taxes for 2011 are due Feb. 1.
Kirk said they’re hoping to get an industry in the building but until then they’re just bleeding money and need some relief.
The owners have the property listed for lease on a commercial real estate website. Henderson said they’ve had only one inquiry in the year it has been up.
Milwaukee Electric Tool also has talked about using some of the warehouse space for an expansion, Kirk said.
Board President Robert Collins said as a business owner himself he understands the plight of Henderson and Kirk, but he said if the board lowered their taxes, it would open itself up to anyone else who has a commercial building not generating enough income to pay the taxes.
Supervisor Robert Moore said that the board had nothing else to go by other than Ware’s recommendation and that he couldn’t go against it.
“I just don’t see taxes getting that political. You just come in and say, ‘Hey, look, I bought some property for this. It may be assessed at this, but I need to pay this for that,’” Moore said. “I don’t know how to do that because I think that we have to have some kind of objective basis.”
Moore said Henderson and Kirk had the option of appealing the board’s decision in circuit court.
Also Monday:
• County Engineer Robert Willis said the county will end up with about $2 million in state aid funds for the four-year term to spend on roads on the state system. But he said a maintenance report based on state aid engineer’s recommendations calls for 53 miles of road to be repaired, which would cost an estimated $3.3 million.
The county has also close to $1 million in bridge repairs deemed “critical.”
County Administrator Sam Abraham said the board will consider a bond issue to pay for the work.
• The board met for 20 minutes in a closed session with economic development leaders about an unnamed industrial prospect. The leaders had already met with the Greenwood City Council last week about the same company.
• The meeting was held in the east courtroom upstairs in the courthouse because of renovations to the Board of Supervisors room. Abraham presented plans for the renovations and said they’re hoping to be done by the fourth Monday in February.
• Contact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith @gwcommonwealth.com.
