Fulton County

County official says some members of assessors board may need to go

By Richard Belcher, WSB-TV
By Richard Belcher, WSB-TV

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Another of Fulton County's top elected officials tells Channel 2 Action News it's time to replace some members of the board that sets property values for tax purposes.

Elected officials are scrambling to respond to angry taxpayers after residents started seeing new assessments.

Some 70,000 Fulton County property owners saw their home valuations rise by more than 50 percent, meaning sharply higher taxes unless the board of assessors freezes the valuations at last year's level.

Some have seen their tax bill double in just a year.

The No. 2 man on the County Commission told Channel 2 investigative reporter Richard Belcher that elected officials were kept in the dark about the stunning increase.

“We have been battling and going back and forth with this board for a while, you know, to try to foster some greater degree of accountability,” Fulton County Commission Vice-Chair Bob Ellis told Belcher.

Channel 2 last saw Ellis when he and Chairman John Eaves asked the board of assessors to throw out the controversial new valuations and return to last year's property values, at least for now.

Ellis said he and his fellow elected officials were caught flat-footed when the board of assessors announced the stunning rise in property values.

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“The documents we are getting are of virtually no utility, and we're reacting to them just in the way that the taxpayers are reacting to them,” Ellis said.

The man in charge of the controversial new values said he gave commissioners full details last month.

“Commissioner Ellis says he was surprised by some of the things he found out as recently as yesterday. It was all there,” Fulton County Chief Appraiser Dwight Robinson said.

Ellis does not accuse the appointed assessors and their staff of intentionally misleading elected officials.

“Certainly we were not provided with any level of opportunity to say, ‘Hey, maybe you guys ought to pause and go back and look at this.’ Because some of these things, they do not pass the eye test,” Ellis told Belcher.

Belcher asked Ellis if he and the elected leadership should replace members of the board of assessors as soon as possible.

“Well, it would certainly appear that that would be the case,” Ellis told Belcher.

Cox Media Group

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