A Leflore County resident has complained to the Board of Supervisors about the property tax increase on her house, the failure of the county to notify her of the hike, and what she characterized as poor service from Tax Assessor Leroy Ware’s office.
After meeting with the supervisors Monday, though, Dr. Cynthia A. Gentry has won a concession that will bring her tax bill back down.
She told the supervisors that she purchased her home on Greenfield Drive in 2015. She said she learned on April 7 that although the appraised value of her house had gone down, her property taxes had gone up by more than $1,000.
Gentry said she began calling a number published on the county’s website with no luck. The phone went unanswered, and she said she left multiple messages that also went unanswered.
Gentry discovered her taxes went up when the amount she paid to her mortgage company increased, not through notification from the Tax Assessor’s Office.
She visited Ware and asked why that was so. His response did not satisfy her.
Ware told supervisors that the information about the amount of property taxes comes from the Tax Collector’s Office, not his, and that the Tax Collector’s Office decided several years ago not to send notices of tax increases to people who paid their taxes through their mortgage companies.
Gentry said Ware told her she would need to prove she lived in the house by providing a current utility bill, and her tax would be adjusted. Ware agreed Monday to lower her assessment rate from 15 percent to 10 percent, the rate applied to single-family, owner-occupied homes. That adjustment will save Gentry $1,100, it was estimated.
Gentry also complained that she was not allowed to apply for a homestead exemption on April 2. The deadline for applying this year was on April 1, a Sunday. Gentry said that she assumed the state would give taxpayers an extra day, but Ware said it did not.
Supervisors agreed to draw up a resolution, recommending to the state that if the April 1 deadline falls on a Sunday, taxpayers be given an extra day to apply.
Supervisors also agreed to have the incorrect telephone number for the Tax Assessor’s Office changed on the county’s website.
Tylisha Sanders, a housing specialist with Central Mississippi, Inc. (CMI), returned to the board after touring county-owned lots at the Lake Bend Estates subdivision.
“We’re interested in building there,” Sanders said.
She asked if supervisors would either donate the land or sell it to CMI for an affordable housing project that seeks to build 13 houses in the county. The program is a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development program that provides low-interest loans to qualified homeowners. Once the houses are completely built, the USDA loan is transferred to a traditional mortgage company.
CMI takes applications from interested potential homeowners, walks them through the process, and helps them establish credit if needed.
The homes will be brick houses, 1,300 to 1,500 square feet in size, valued somewhere between $103,000 and $115,000, significantly more than the existing homes at Lake Bend, according to county officials.
District 1 Supervisor Sam Abraham said he believed the lots in question had been gifted to the county, and Board Attorney Joyce Chiles said they would need to check whether there are any restrictions in the deed handing them over to the county.
To sell the lots, the county would have to set a price. Ware, the tax assessor, said he would give supervisors an assessed value of the lots in question.
District 5 Supervisor Robert Collins, in whose district Lake Bend is located, told Sandifer, “I think the board will make this work.”
The matter was tabled until the next meeting on May 7.
In other county business, the board:
•Approved paving, repairs and an overlay of a section of County Road 124 at an estimated cost of $134,000.
•Approved paying an invoice from AT&T for $282,747 for the county’s E-911 upgrade.
•Agreed to seek approval from the Mississippi Department of Transportation to place a “low ground clearance” warning sign on County Road 87, where it crosses the railroad tracks. Last month, a semi-truck delivering a pair of tractors was stuck on the crossing and hit by a CN freight train. The request to place a warning sign there came from CN.
•Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
