Local & State Headlines

Tax suit clears a hurdle

• A class-action suit over the 2007 revaluation of Dougherty County real estate survives a legal challenge.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Dougherty taxpayers who filed suit over the county’s 2007 reassessment of property values scored a legal victory Tuesday when a judge refused to dismiss the case.

Last year’s countywide reassessment of property values, which Dougherty Tax Director Denver Hooten said was the first since 1963, boosted Dougherty’s tax digest by some 20 percent, though local governments later lowered their millage rates slightly.

But the reassessment was fundamentally flawed, said a lawsuit filed in January by 12 property owners against Hooten and the Dougherty Board of Tax Assessors.

The firm hired to conduct the reassessment, Tyler CLT Division, used a “mass appraisal” methodology, considering only square footage and age to determine a home’s value, ignoring comparable sales and other relevant factors such as use, while agricultural property was valued at a flat per-acre price, the suit alleged.

Of some 34,000 parcels reassessed, Dougherty officials have reported that “slightly over 5,400 taxpayers filed appeals” of the new values.

According to the complaint, the county also neglected to provide a “nontechnical” explanation for increases of 15 percent or more as required by Georgia law, then discouraged taxpayers during the appeals process, scheduling hundreds of hearings at the same time and stacking three adjunct boards of equalization with members “disinclined to support the reduction of appraised values.”

In a motion to dismiss the suit filed Jan. 23, Hooten and the board of tax assessors said the taxpayers had adequate remedies at law through the appeals process and in superior court, and denied many of the plaintiffs’ factual allegations.

Dougherty Superior Court Judges Loring Gray, Willie Lockette and Stephen Goss recused themselves from the case Jan. 10 because all “own real estate, pay property taxes and are potential class members,” so the case has been heard by Judge John Crosby, Senior Judge from the Tifton Judicial Circuit.

The plaintiffs’ counsel, former Albany Commissioner Bo Dorough, was replaced in February by Hilliard Burt.

In an order filed Tuesday, Crosby denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss any of the complaint’s 18 counts.

“We’re just thrilled to death,” said Richard Thomas, a plaintiff in the case and member of Concerned Citizens of Dougherty County, a taxpayers’ group. “The community will realize that we have a voice now.”

Though Dougherty’s tax digest has been approved by the Department of Revenue, tax bills have been mailed and many paid. If plaintiffs win the suit in a likely jury trial, many taxpayers will be due refunds.

A Dougherty grand jury that convened in December also recommended the values be set aside and taxpayers be billed at 2006 values.

The nonprofit taxpayers’ group has paid many legal fees through donations, and needs $30,000-$40,000 more to continue the litigation, Thomas said.

“This is a victory for Mom and Pop, people who live in $100,000 or less homes. These are people who can’t afford a lawyer,” he said.

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