GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Plastic bins teaming with property tax appeals fill two cubicles inside the Gwinnett County Tax Assessor's Office -- the most anyone in the county has ever seen at one time.
Nearly 32,000 appeals must be processed but county officials said they are not panicking; they were actually prepared for it.
"It's a very large number, yes," Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners Chair Charlotte Nash told Channel 2's Kerry Kavanaugh.
"We actually set aside, have over $20 million set aside in what we call a budget stabilization reserve intended for these types of situations," Nash said.
Nash said the county created the reserve fund because of the new state law requiring all property owners now get an assessment amid the continued housing crisis.
In 2009, Gwinnett County taxpayers filed just 7,853 residential and commercial appeals. In 2010, that number climbed to 9,628, just 30 percent of this year's total.
It all means less money for the county, as homeowners hope to recover from falling home values.
"It's more than crazy; the taxes are too high," homeowner Sampson Monger told Kavanaugh.
Monger said he missed the May 31 appeals deadline, but he wanted to appeal after his property taxes went up even though the value of his home in the Belfaire Lake neighborhood dropped.
"Last year it was half of that price, half of that amount," he said.
"Unfortunately the impacts of the economic downtown are not going to stop in 2011," Nash said.
Seventy percent of the county budget depends on property taxes, according to Nash, who said the county will continue to prepare for an above normal number of appeals and less money to go around in years to come.
WSBTV
