001We're now out of executive session and we will start as we always do with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So, the purpose of tonight's meeting is to talk about reassessment, which has been ongoing in Newcastle County now for a couple of years. Under state law, school boards do have some discretion when it comes to the tax rates. And um so tonight's meeting is for uh Mr. Loftess to kind of give us background on that and present some preliminary numbers to us. Although we're not taking any votes, we're not making any decisions. This is just a workshop. And um in fact, as I understand it,
002we'll still be getting better numbers in the next couple of weeks anyway. But with that, Eric, I'll turn it over to you. So Steve, if you could pull up the presentation for us. So I want to cover a couple things and we can go into as much detail as we need to. Um and certainly at any point please stop me and ask questions on any of these items. Uh want to kind of give us an update on where we are with the revenue for this year. Um and I'll explain why that's important and then we'll go through the assessment data and then we'll talk a little bit about concerns we have with that data at this point. So I wanted to put in here uh what Delaware Code says. the reason why we're here tonight.
003Um it's title 14, chapter 19, 1916. Section B is the part of the code that we really focus on with this. Um, this isn't the most exciting stuff to talk about, but I wanted to make sure we're highlighting that generally whenever there's the the code says that whenever there's a countywide reassessment that subsequent to a general reassessment of all real estate in the county changes total assess valuation of the school district, the local board of education of each such local school district shall calculate a new real estate tax rate which at its maximum would realize no more than 10% increase in actual revenue over revenue derived in the fiscal year immediately preceding such reassessed valuation. And so that's the language basically that just gives us the parameters that says because you had a reassessment done
004countywide and the total assessment of the district increased from one number to another number. What we're to do is to go back to what was the revenue derived with the first number and that the new rate has to be calculated in such a way that at its maximum is 10% no more than 10% year-over-year. Right? And and to further explain this, ordinarily if we want to raise operating revenue, we have to go out to a referendum to get the uh our constituents residents approval to do that. Delaware law provides, oh, in the case of a reassessment, school boards, you can raise the revenue up to 10% without having to go out to a referendum. If this sounds unfamiliar to people or a surprise to you, it may be because Newcastle County hasn't had a reassessment
005since 1983. And so it hasn't been an issue uh low these past uh 42 years. Um but having said that, I just want to put that in context. That's where this comes from. Doesn't do referendum. furthermore makes the whole process slightly difficult because there's not a lot of history that says, "Well, last time this happened, those people are no longer really around that can help with this conversation." So, going forward, I wanted to update us on the revenue projection. All right, Steve, I hit it once. There we go. so far. And what I'm really focusing on with this particular slide is I'm really looking at that first column for current expense. When we talk about the budget, we talk about the four areas of the budget um that we break down each year. So there's
006the tuition tax which supports the special education students. There's the match tax which supports a couple of pieces of code that are are small pots of money such as minor capital improvements, things like that. There's the debt service tax which funds the bonds that we have for construction. And then the current expense tax which we refer to as a general operating tax. And so that's the big piece. That's what we are really focused on day-to-day that funds the local portion of salaries that funds it uh curriculum um all sorts of different things. What I've got here in this first column is we've got a all actuals going through May and then down below where it says SR1 and SR2, we get two allocations of senior property tax rebate money from the state. I'll explain that
007in a minute. We've gotten the first allocation. I put a projection in there for the second allocation and I put a projection in there for June. These are run based on run rates of what we received in the past and kind of taking a look at this is an odd year because we're not getting quarterly assessments for new stuff added and in our district this year. Um so I'm I'm pretty confident that these are pretty fiscally conservative numbers. Um, but what we're looking at is really with current expense 49,188,000 is what we would receive roughly. Just to clarify, the senior property tax at some point the state um made legislation that said that seniors uh could apply for and qualify for a $500 reduction on their property taxes. However, there was no real way for
008this the school districts to recoup that that funding that they're basically it's being taken away from us. So, the state determined that what they would do is they would calculate all the people within our district who received that all the properties that received that reduction and they would give that to us as revenue from the state in two different uh aotments throughout the year. So there's one that occurs in like November or December and then we get the final version of that um usually by April but it's been somewhat delayed due to um maybe it's reassessment that's delayed it um but we should be getting that in the next week. So, the number we're thinking about for this year, 49 uh,188,000. When we go to the next page, I want to make sure I'm highlighting
009here. When we did the final budget, in the preliminary budget, we knew that total assessment was $2.78 billion. And that number that we had for total revenue in the um for current expense was 49,171,000. So we're currently up slightly to forecast um to that budget. But what we do know is that the assessment number the county is using for the June 30th number which really that's when by June 30th all the assessed property that was available for us that was the number it so total assessment increased from March to June last year from 2.782 million to 2.796 million or billion I'm sorry what we should be receiving if we collected everything that was taxed should be $49,412,000. So we've got a variance here of where we're short about $223,000 which appears to be a delinquency
010factor of about half a percent in our tax collections. that's always been outpaced by the growth of the district because in any given year we're always talking about how we've added another million dollars to our tax revenue at this point. But because we haven't collected that this year, it's given us a really good window into seeing here's what we actually collected on what the county told us we had um versus what per the formula what we should have collected. And so there's a delta there of about half a percent. So, can I ask a question about this real quick? So, the first underlined portion above it, it says tax revenue equals total assessment divided by 100 times tax rate and you get 49 million 171,590. And then beneath that, you've got fiscal year 25 actual
011assessment at 49 million 412093. So the actual assessment I just want to make sure I understand these numbers. So the 491 171 is what we've actually collected. No. No. Okay. So the first part of that, the first part that's underlined is what we based our budget on. That's the number that's in our final budget that was in our preliminary budget as well. Okay. And what that is based on is that in every year since 1983, I suppose um but every year that I've been in this position, we receive a letter in March that says, "Here's your total assessment." Right? This is what we base our revenue on each year. Got it. Then when we looked at the data that we've gotten from the county thus far, there was a quarterly assessment that happened from March
012to June that increased that assessment by 14 million, right? 14 million. And so based on that information, we should have collected this year 49,412,000. But what I just showed in the previous slide was 49,188,000. So we're short slightly by about a half a percent. But if I add the 223 or if I sub so the 49,412,000 is what we've actually collected. What we should have collected had everybody paid. Okay. So what what have we collected? That was on the previous slide. Uh, we're still waiting for So that first column at the bottom 49188. 49188. Okay. But the 49188 is still ever so slightly more than what we based our budget on. Correct. Okay. That's what I wanted to make sure I understood. Thank you. But the point of this all and going down this rabbit
013hole is to verify that we do have about a half a percent delinquency rate. So the 22399 number is the difference between what we should have collected the 49412 and what we did collect which is the 49188 correct previous page. That is correct. Okay. All right. I've forwarded to you all an Excel document with all the information that I've received thus far on assessments, appeals, and I've put on each tab of that file where we talk about the different um subsets that I want to kind of walk through right now. So, just to kind of give you an idea on this in this file, February 24th, we received a listing from the county with all parcels with the old and new assessment data on it. Um, that's on the February 24, 2025 data tab. When
014you look at the exempt tab, that's a listing that we've received from the county in April of all properties that um we're looking that we're showing that they were listed as exempt and there's some concerns with the data with that which we'll get into in a few minutes here. Um there's an appeals tab in the file that I sent to you that shows all the appeals data that we received from the county um that was filed before the deadline and that's just for aquin. That's just for appeat from the other school districts today. Okay. There's a lowinccome tab in which we've done a manual calculation as best we can to say that there was so there was a program within the county that said if you qualified you would have a reduction of $32,000 off
015of your assessment. And so in all the years past, if you had a $100,000 assessed value house and then you qualified for that ex exemption, then they would subtract $32,000 from that assessment and then you would pay off of that new assessed amount. So there was a little bit of a tax break for people that qualify for this program. The concern was that now that everything's valued not in 1983, but in $224, the value of $32,000 should change and should go up. And it's my understanding that legislation has been passed to increase that to I think $173,000. Um, but that is not reflected in this data. So, I want to I have a tab in which we've taken a look at that information. And then I also attached in the file that I sent to
016you, there should be a tab that says SB35. So, Senate Bill 35 was a farmland structures bill. And I've simply sent to you the snapshot of the fiscal note of that so that you could see the um impact that that would have if that bill passes. This is the raw. So, this a p I'm going to go through each of those sections real quick just so that you kind have have an idea of what you're looking at. This is the raw data. The only thing I did was for purposes of the presentation here. I took out the parcel numbers. The data that you guys receive should have the parcel numbers in there. Um, so you're going to see the parcel number, the school district code. This code is apparently the app equipment code. There's a
017class that's listed. Um, that class then determines the type of property is. U is utility, F is farm, R is residential, C is commercial, ER is exempt residential, EC is exempt commercial. Uh if you have any questions about that, feel free to email me and I'll be happy to send you what the county sent to me. Um there should be a grid um that has those explanations, but I believe those are the only types of properties we have. So then we have the 1983 current total and the 2024 final total. So this is the difference between the valuation of that property in 1983 and 2024. Then there's two columns that are relevant to school taxes. 83 current school taxable and then 2024 final school taxable. Now they're applying the old tax rate and they're putting
018out a new tax rate which I'm not sure why they decided to do that. Um, but they did add these columns and that's that's just a a formula that they've put out where they've said based on the old tax rate which was 15,700 in that first line, if you divide that by 100, multiply by the tax rate, you get 277. And then based on the new total for 2024, when you divide that by 100 and then they assume that a tax rate would be adjusted um based on the totals, they're showing that this particular property would pay $221 less. So that's how the data reads. As far as I'm concerned, those last three columns aren't things that we put out there. That's not information that um we scrubbed. This is just supposed to So the
019file you sent us though probably has thousands of lines. This is just representative. Correct. This is just a snippet so that we could talk through the columns so that if you had questions about what these columns meant that we could address that so that you understood what you were looking at. Yeah. And you're correct. There's thousands and thousands of rows of this. Are we good to move on to the next one? Appeals data. Uh there's two appeals parts that I want to look at. You have a parcel number that's been deleted um for the presentation and then appeals date hearing reason the value and then the requested value and then it shows the assessment at risk. So none of this is final yet. These haven't gone through any sort of hearings and have become official,
020but what it shows you is like for that first property, there was a value. They they were told your your new assessment is going to this number and then they put in said, "Well, we're appealing it and we want it to be 528 or 526 instead of 666." Uh, so all this data is just there for us to look at. There's no determination has been made is in terms of is this assessment realistic or how much of this none of this has been actually judged on yet. It's that's it's just the data. Um and that's kind of where we're at with that. There's also another whole subset of the appeals data in which the requested value and the assessment at risk says to be determined. And so the reason for that was they had a
021deadline in which they had to file an appeal, but they were given an extended date at which they had to actually put in what the requested change would be. Um, and that information has not been received by us in terms of that being updated. Um, any indication as to when some of this will like wrap up? So, we're we're told that there's there at this point Tyler has turned all the data over to the county and Tyler's now out of the picture. And I don't know the how many people are on staff at the county that are working through this, but this is just one piece of it. Yeah. Um, these appeals, the big issue with these appeals is that it may take all through out next year to kind of come to some sort
022of fruition about what's going to happen with these properties. So, there may be a point where we have to take a look at this is for the ones that have a requested value. This is a run rate. Does this percentage look like it's reasonable to assume for all the houses that are under appeal? And what does that rate look like? And we because we can't operate into the next year without having a revenue number. In order to get a revenue number, we have to make a decision um on what we think the new rate should be. And we're probably going to have to make some reasonable educated guesses about the appeals data among other things. Mhm. And just to further answer that question, so there's about 210,000, I think now is the estimate, individual tax
023parcels in Newcastle County. There were approximately 5,200 appeals filed by the deadline. Some of those appeals, typically homeowners appeals get filed and they just give like three or four comps and say these three or four comps comparable properties are similar to mine and their assessment average is X. So you should reduce my assessment. Not particularly complicated doing residential assessments and where people supplied that information with their appeal form. I think the plan for the county is to have try to do those and and you know people come in work through them and you can do those relatively quickly. Many of the appraisals many of the appeals though involve commercial and office property. So you've got an office building on Limestone Road. You've got a hotel down in Newark. You've got a hotel up on 202.
024You've got an office building in the city of Wilmington. And what the county said is look your deadline is March 16th. And then they changed it to March 31st to file your appeal. Ordinarily, they want an appraisal when you file your appeal, but given how crazy busy appraisers are right now, good time to be an appraiser. Um, they gave everybody till June 16th to get the appraisal in for their property. So, if you're a hotel owner and you know that you're overassessed, but you want to get an appraiser to present your case to the board, then you've got till June 16th to actually get that appraisal done and hand it into the county. And once the county has all of that information, it then need to have to review all of these appraisals and it
025will get back to property owners and say, "Hey, got your appraisal. Tell you what, we said $10 million. your appraiser says six, why don't we split the baby at 8 or probably shouldn't say that in a schoolboard meeting, but you know what I mean. Um, and so, uh, you know, compromise. Yeah, that's probably a safer word to say, right? Compromise and say, "Hey," and the property owner may say, "That sounds good to me." Or the property owner may say, "No, I want to go to a hearing." In which case, there's a hearing before what's called the board of assessment review. and your appraiser testifies about why it's overassessed and the county's appraiser says, "Oh, no. Our assessment was spoton." And then the board makes a decision. And more often than not, it will split the
026difference somewhere. That all takes time, as you can imagine. And it would not surprise me if there are appeals a year from now that still have not been heard or considered. There's 5,200 of them. So, it'll be a long time. And in the meantime, if you're a property owner, what do you do? I think my bill is too high. Do I pay the bill or do I not pay the bill and wait for the actual assessed value to come in knowing that if I don't do that, there may be penalties and interests that I have to pay. So, typically, I think on these larger tax bills, the property owners will pay what they think the bill should be, and then there's a delta. Some will pay the whole thing anyway and then if they do
027they get it and the assessment is reduced they get a credit on future tax bills. It can be a real headache dealing with these things as you can you have an idea of the number of the 5200 appeals how many district there was somewhere around I can get that data for you and I can get you the total number that is under appeal. um we were somewhere around 800 properties, seven or 800 properties that were currently outstanding with our district. If we look at that those Excel Excel spreadsheets we got from the county and just count the number of rows, which it'll tell you, then that'll give us the exact number of appeals. Um you know, I'll say good news, bad news about Aquinamic is we have a much higher percentage of residential property than
028we do non-residential property. And um so there's I'm going to say less at risk with residential property. Um and you know to the extent we do have large office industrial commercial complexes down here I'm not sure many of those folks challenged challenged it. Um but that's just my sense. I mean we'll have to look at the data a little more carefully to figure that out. So just out of curiosity one last question. I and I think this is an appropriate correlation. So when we went out for referendum, one of the tools that we provided the public was this uh link and you kind of put in your parcel number and it allows for you to forecast what your tax impact would be. Was that accurate? Like do we have anything like I'm thinking on February
02924, 2025 data like the change column like of course we don't know who put put it in but I'm just like wondering like the accuracy of that significant tool. So, the county has made some assumption about what we think the new tax rate is, which is not valid. That's not something we've made a decision on. And I I think with that data, um it was irresponsible of them to put that column in and a change column in. I'm not sure why they would be doing that. Um we haven't set a new tax rate yet. So the data that we put out there was accurate so long as the the resident put in the accurate assessment data that they were looking at at the time. Yeah. I guess is it like Eric I think you've got
030a slide that actually addresses if it's it's a question the Newcastle County comparison slide. Yeah. And I think more so because we promoted it in a pretty significantly it is it indeed a useful tool and I don't know if we can answer that but as I'm listening to this I just remember our constant iteration and all those presentations we did at the schools that was a tool that we and I think what we well okay yeah let's get back you're asking what the effect of the referendum would be on individual homeowners you know and you could figure out based on your assessment and based on the proposed increase in the tax rate, what your additional tax bill would be, right? Yes. But now what you're asking, I think, is everybody's assessment is going up or
031just about everybody's assessment is going up. Um, some what's that going to how is that going to affect people's taxes? Yeah. And if you go to the slide, Eric, I'm now stealing your slide from you. Newcastle County. Go back to one thing before you start talking numbers just because we're talking about um how we represent ourselves as a district. The answer I think first is yes. The tax calculator that we used during the reassessment was accurate then now that the factors has changed. We wouldn't be able to use the same one going forward. I just want to make sure that that's that that's addressed before we get into the weeds about numbers because like you're saying public perception. Yes, we were genuine in what we were sharing with the public at the time with the
032numbers that we had and the reassessment calculator I mean the what the impact of the um tax calculator referendum would be at that time. Now all the variables of that equation would change but I just wanted to make sure that we and we did talk about that when we did our presentations but I don't want someone to think we were being disingenuine at the time with our numbers. I think it's that exactly because the shift now the explanation as board members is now the facts that we have current day. So we presented at that time based off of what we knew and a tool that we felt we we had confidence in that tool which is not necessarily does not necessarily translate present day because the unknown factors. Well, partly because what we knew was
033that whatever your assessment was, we knew that what we were asking for like with the current expense tax was that the rate was going to 17 $1.76.7. The purpose of what we're doing here per chapter 19 of code and all that is that we're changing that rate. We're changing that $1.7 76.7 to something much lower based on how the total assessment of the count of the district went from one number to a much higher number. Right. So the rates coming back down way, but I think it's what you said. I don't I'm not sure that the second part of the message was probably heard and accepted. Well, it was I I know I talked about it a lot because we talked at length about revenue neutral. So, the rate would be adjusted where the school
034district is no longer going to be it will be bringing in essentially about the same amount for individual homeowners. There was that 30% it would go up or the 30% it would go down. We talked all about that. We talked about how the tool functioned right then, but then once reassessment occurred, that tool wouldn't work anymore. Yeah. The tool not working anymore, I guess, is the piece I'm not sure. need to replug in the numbers to make the tool work in the future with whatever the new tax rate is. And people will still be in the future, should the district ever go to referendum again, choose to um you'll be able to plug in your new assessed value and the new rate and with the same tool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I don't have a
035working No, I just wanted Yeah. Go ahead. Um, so moving forward in the data, there's an exempt properties issue that we have where just a couple of examples of that and there's not a ton of these properties, but we had some properties where they're listed as exempt residential. A few may be listed as residential or exempt commercial. There's nothing in the 1983 value. Um but suddenly there's a value in the n the 2024 field. Um this is happening amongst all the districts and all the districts have been trying to talk with the county about the possibility that there's some errors in the data. Um so we're waiting for an answer or waiting for a response um on that particular issue which brings into question well this is something we caught and we're not data experts
036on this stuff so is there something else and so we're we're a little concerned. Well, and certainly to the extent that those if property is supposed to be exempt and it's showing a final school taxable and that's included in our new overall assessment base, we have to back that out. I mean, cuz you can't tax something that's exempt. That's the thought, right? Either something's changed and it's now not no longer exempt or there's an error and it should have been zero, right? Yep. So, we're waiting on a response about that. And then the final tab I wanted to show share with you was the low income. So once again, this is back to the same data that we were looking at from the the raw data from February 25th. The difference here is that you're
037going to see that there's a difference in the 1983 current total column and the 1983 current school taxable column. That's roughly about a $32,000 difference. Um, so that's that $32,000 low-income credit that was received by a new number of people or number of residents. And so then when you look at the 2024 final and the 2024 final school, it's yet 500 plus%. Right? And so that needs to be corrected. Um, and so I'm just bringing to light some issues that we have with the data that need to be addressed. Um, either that needs to be cleaned up by the county or we need to make some assumptions about what the impact is going to be of that so that we can make a an educated decision about the tax rate. So, I've gone through each
038of the tabs that's in the Excel data of what we know so far, what it means, what the issues are that we see right now. Um, what we know is the county is still processing stuff. They're still fixing data. There's, um, over the past week or so, we saw that there was legislation that was fixing that $32,000 problem and moving it to 173,000, I believe. Uh so hopefully we'll get a new cut of data that gives that has that updated for us. Um the reality is that especially when it comes to appeals, not everything that we would need ideally is going to be fixed and we're not going to have clean data probably by the end of June or even by the board meeting in July. Um, so we're going to probably get to a
039point where we're going to have to make some educated um, guesses or estimates about what we think that data is going to be. We're going to be close. We're going to be real close and we'll know what those issues will be such as appeals. Um, but we'll have to have a point where we kind of make a decision about we think appeals is the impact's going to be this amount. Um, and then once again, we also know that there's about a half a percent delinquency rate this year. We don't know per what Mr. Forston was saying about what people do if they're in appeals. Some may not pay it until it's resolved. Some may pay the whole thing and get a credit later on. I know that most districts already have a 1% delinquency rate
040built into their rate, their tax rate, and most of them are moving that north by a half a percent or so. The county, I believe, is moving their rate up to one and a half% for delinquency to to make sure they're allocating they're building that into their assumptions. Um, when we get to the county comparison, a lot of data on this page. Um, wanted to kind of give you a little bit of an idea as to where we are versus the rest of the county. So, the first c the first column is what the old assessment was. Now the Brandy Wine Christina colonial and red clay data that's the old assessment based on their March information that they received in 2024. So that's what's in their budget. The data for aquinamic that's based on the
041data that we received from the county as to what we truly were as of June 30th. Um then you have the new assessment number. So that's pulled right from the um information we got from the county. So that that billion227 million is where we're at right now with the total assessment for the district. That's assuming that no appeal gets approved and that none of the errors are fixed and that the $32,000 lowinccome issue is never resolved. Um it's it's making it that's just the total number of where we are. So, like when you look at the number without making any of those estimates or adjustments, we went up about 544%. Which is higher than any of the other districts have gone up. Then I'm showing you the tax rate for current expense tax where we
042stand and where the other districts stand. So the average of the other districts are $1.99.03. Our rate is 88.78% of the average of the other districts. Once again, because they have a higher assessment, you can see in the very next column the total revenue that current expense revenue that we're bringing in versus what the other districts are bringing in. And again, just to put that in perspective, we pat ourselves on the back. Maybe sometimes too much, but Christina's got what about 3,000 more kids than us? 17,000 and 4,000. Christina, they have about 200 kids more. That's Christina. Yeah. Wow. We might pass them this year. All right. So you look at Christina, they're bringing in $122 million for their operating expenses and we're bringing in 49,000. Red Clay, that's what I was I meant Clay's
043about 3,000. All right. And they're still bringing in more than twice that twice what we are. But isn't there a breakdown in that because of the difference between residential and commercial properties in our areas? That's a that's a big factor. Um, just for we've talked about that a lot. You're our newest school board member. Can you explain that difference and anybody who's tuning in that hasn't heard the whole thing? Sure. We're we're 80% plus somewhere between 80 and 90% of our total assessment is residential. Um, and we're like the third highest in terms of residential as a percent of the total assessment um in the state. when you get to some of these other districts like Colonial is almost a 50/50 split between commercial and residential. So, and we know just by virtue of living
044in the area, you know, we have a Home Depot that brings in 70 plus,000 in property taxes to us and we're grateful for that. Christina has three of them. They have auto dealerships and you know there's that whole um Wilmington tax pool. You know that the mall is bringing in millions of dollars in property tax revenue that they're they're all getting a piece of and we're not. So there's just a ton of I think roughly 75% of all commercial property in the state of Delaware is split amongst the four northern districts to the north of us. Um, the only other districts that have a higher percent of residential, Cape Penopin, where you could argue that some of our parents that live here and send their kids to our school are paying property taxes down there
045because they own a residence down there, but it's a rental each house, right? So, it's not coming with the kids um where it does here. And then I think um Caesar Rodney is like number two on the list um for in terms of residential. I assume that people live around Caesar Rodney's district are driving in towards Dover to go to the mall or do the shopping or whatever. But they also have $12 million they're getting from the military for the um air base which certainly supports a lot of what they need to do. So here, people are moving here to send their kids to school, yet they're shopping in other places and they're going to work in other places. Um, and so we're not getting the benefit of that tax revenue. And the good news
046down the road, but it doesn't affect the analysis we have to do in July. Um, you know, there's been a new um Amazon distribution center uh approved for Middlene Road on the other side of 301. And there's also another high-tech distribution center that's been approved right across Middleneck Road from the new Amazon facility. Those are probably well Amazon's at least 18 months from coming online and being fully assessed. But the Boxwood Road facility, which is this is going to be a future iteration of Boxwood Road, that's paying 2 and a.5 million a year in property taxes to Red Clay. And so when those two facilities get built and when Mushi, which is the pharmaceutical company on on levels road next to Breakthrough Beverage, I mean they're up some of their buildings are under roof. They'll
047probably come online next spring. And so we are we are going to see some additional commercial assessments coming in to the tune of several million dollars. It can't come fast enough and even if we got it tomorrow, it wouldn't be enough. But there is I think it's important to highlight that during the process the county also didn't charge anybody bringing new buildings online. So yes, what Miss Wall just said that because the county historically your taxes are due July 1st of every year. So you'll get a bill, you're assessed as of what your property condition was in July 1st. If you build a new home in June, if you build a whenever you build it, whatever is there July 1st, that's what you pay your property taxes on. But that then people keep building things
048during the course of the year. And as new buildings get built, once a certificate of occupancy or a CO is issued, that triggers the county then to come out and look around and say, "Oh, this place is up and running now." So then they assess your property and you have to pay Pratta for the balance of the year based on a quarterly system. So if you came online in September, you start paying your tax bill as of November 1st. If you came online in December, you pay your tax bill starting January 1st. And that's the additional revenue that Eric I think mentioned earlier as new things get built during the course of the year. You don't get a year tax-free living, a property taxfree living. In theory, you get assessed once you get your CO.
049However, this last year because of reassessment and everybody being so busy at the county office doing the reassessments, they didn't come out. And when Target hasn't paid any property taxes yet, Sprouts hasn't paid any property taxes yet. Anybody who moved into a new house in a development somewhere since last July hasn't gotten a property tax bill yet because the county hasn't gotten out to reassess them. or if they have, they haven't run the paperwork through the system. And that probably cost us, I mean, think about it. Target's tax bill is probably going to be $200,000 a year minimum. So, a half year's tax bill they should have started paying January 1st. That's $100,000 that they didn't have to pay us this year. That in any other year they would have. And that's a teacher, right,
050that we didn't get this last year because the county wasn't doing supp what are called supplemental assessments. So, not something that you might have read about in the news journal, although maybe you should have, but that's one of the problems that we've had uh and has made this year a little bit more challenging financially than it should have been. When you think about on average what we normally would bring in for those quarterly assessments added to the property back property assessments and the fact that we also increased the tax rate this year. Um it's easy you could I mean speculative right because I don't even know yet the county hasn't given us any idea as to what the total amount of assessed property that's come online but it wouldn't be unreasonable to say it would
051be north of a million dollars that we would have got this year alone because we've been averaging 800 850 700,000 or whatever. If you increase that by 30% for the new tax rate, that puts us in the million-doll range easily for that um that would have that we didn't get this year. So, any other questions about the comparison amongst the other districts? Well, the point I was going to try to answer for Dr. earlier. If you look at this chart, you'll see that the percentage increase in epoquinic right now is 544%. So that's that's pre-appeals. So if there's a lot of appeals, that percentage might drift down. Let's say it drifts down to 500% to keep the math easy. What that tells us is that if we decide to be revenue neutral, then we will
052reduce our current tax rate by five. Well, we will divide our current tax rate by 500% to get the new tax rate. And if your assessment went up exactly 500%, your tax bill would be the same. If your assessment went up more than 500%, mine went up slightly more than 500%. Then my tax bill will be a little higher and if your tax if your assessment went up less than 500%. Then your tax bill will actually go down. So if your assessment was $80,000 and your new assessment is 400 $400,000, that's a 500% increase, your tax bill should be approximately the same. So that's one way just looking at the numbers and thinking about it off the top of your head what the likely outcome may or may not be. We'll obviously be able to
053tell people for sure when we have our vote in July. I do have a question while you're talking comparisons. So we I'm trying to think of the exact way I want to phrase this. We're really familiar with going to referendum in response to growth in our district specifically very unique to any district in the state really. So when we think about referendum and we think about growth we can reasonably forecast that a another referendum would be coming simply based on growth. So I'll preface that with my question. When we look at the other counties in Newcastle County, do we have an idea or have any has anyone spoken publicly about how they plan to address the 10% knowing that other counties aren't in the same situation as other school districts? Other school districts I apologize.
054So just a so Kent County last year they were a little ahead of the other three counties. So every district in Kent County did the 10% except for SPA. They didn't do the 10%. Um and Smart actually is in Kent and Newcastle County, but they decide not to do it on the Kent County side of it. I had a conversation with um the superintendents today in regards to this. And so Christina's already came out and say publicly rather than go to referendum, they're doing the 10% lift. Um the other districts are looking at a 2 and a half to three and a half% lift to look at combating some of those things that we talked about tonight. Those variables that are out you don't know, right? Those things you don't know um that are out
055there. That's currently where they are as of uh May the whatever today's date is 25th I think it is. Um and so I mean that's currently what they're looking at. Now, also remember Brandy Wine and Red Clay went out to referendums last year. Um, both of those districts did step referendums where they did um a certain number and then they did like 10 cents the next year and 10 cents the following year. So, they also have that on top of whatever the 10% is. Um, and balancing that out. Well, I would just say my opinion being one of five and not someone who's ultimately going to vote on this measure. Um, we've always prided ourselves on being extremely fiscally responsible and I too don't enjoy referendum, but I think that it's important to have the
056community's input on how you spend their money. I also think being fiscally responsible in this role as a schoolboard member, you do have to take all of those factors into consideration. And maybe it's a 2%, maybe it's a 3%. I don't know. And you all will have to decide that. But that's something to take into consideration is that the factors are unknown and we always try to work with what we know when we do a referendum. So we're very thoughtful and intentional about an amount that we can be successful with, but also that the community can tolerate. This is a whole different game in making a prediction because a lot of the numbers are unknown as we go forward. So I don't really have an opportunity probably to speak on this again. So that's just
057my and I know we might not you can come during public comment in July public comment in July. We'll even give you as a former as a no as a former board member she gets four. But I think it's important to think about it in that way. We'd have the board will have to approach your their thoughtfulness around this in a different way than we've ever approached a referendum number because when we approach a referendum number, the numbers are concrete. Um, we know what we're working with. In this case, we don't know what we're working with and we have to make sure that we're still setting up the district for success. So, that's at least my thoughts thus far and I was curious how the other districts compare. So, thank you. I would say to
058this board's credit, none of the other districts to my knowledge are doing a board workshop publicly like this to discuss this information. I might be wrong, but the ones I've talked to um have said that they're not. No one else that I know of either when I talked today, I was explaining that tonight we're doing a workshop to try to educate the board as well as well as with the public on what's going on, right? And hopefully, look, alls we're going to be able to do in July, it seems to me, is do the best job we can with the information we have at that time. I mean, I have said for years publicly that I would not support any I want to be revenue neutral. Now, it may not be possible to be revenue
059neutral in July because we won't have precise precise figures and so we will have to be let's be honest, it won't allow you to be your fiscal hawk. Well, it has nothing to do with being a fiscal hawk. Um, it but we will make we will be totally transparent and we will display all of our assumptions and we will make the best educated guess that we can. At least I will. and I'll support what I think is the best educated guess to maintain neutrality but account for the risk that comes from these assessment appeals that are pending. Um the good news is there aren't nearly as many in Apoquin as there are I think in the other districts. The bad news is there's any pending at all, but such is life. Um, but let's wait
060and see what information we have in the middle of June and then at our July meeting because that's when we're actually going to be taking uh an actual vote. I just think it's important to explain the difference between coming up with this type of a number than a referendum. Oh, no. And right, absolutely. I mean, Eric will have another PowerPoint for us that lays it all out with all the assumptions that will be factored into that decision. And I think again, I think just to kind of underpin what you're saying, Mr. for us is the assumptions piece because I think uh to Mrs. Wall's point up until now we have used concrete data. So even as a as a board member that will have input it's going to be really difficult to kind of wrap
061your minds around it and then ask also at least three of us get behind it. Right. Um, so I'm eager to hear what what you present um and kind of the rationale around the assumptions because for me that's where I think the proverbial rubber meets the road is the rationale um because in a few months that's all that we're going to have to rely on. And I think it itarkens back to my point that I was making earlier around the tax assessment calculator and the tools and things that we kind of put out there that not everybody always remembers the details, but I think of all of this is the assumption part and that we've made a good effort to ensure that we're taking into consideration accurate points of data to to support the numbers,
062if you will. So, and that's why I made sure that you guys got all that data that I've received to date broken out on tabs to I mean, I know it's a lot of information and it's not, you know, it's if you've got insomnia, that's the cure in some cases, but the um idea is to make sure that you've got all the data I've got. Yeah, for sure. And there it is. You know, if we were in any other given year, we knew what the revenue was going to be for next year at this point. And so setting a budget was pretty easy. Easy. Yeah. Um the problem with it is is that we just don't know we don't know what the assessment total is going to be to then calculate the rate which then
063calculates the revenue. And so it it's it's a pain point that we're all feeling right now. I mean we've got teams of people ready to go to plan for next year and it's a little difficult to do that when we don't know what the revenue is going to be at this point. So Dr. Burrows, thank you for that. Um, Dr. Bros. So, what what if anything is would you suggest is a communication plan around this because we know not everybody tunes into our very lively schoolboard meetings, right? Um, as we begin to as much as Rich, Mr. Forest thinks that they do. Um, so can you comment a little bit? I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but if you can comment a little bit about what you your thoughts around a
064communication plan as it relates to trying to get this message to the public. I know that your peers aren't having a forum like this. Doesn't mean that obviously it didn't mean that we weren't doing it, but um to the greater extent a plan around communicating this. So, one of the things that we've tried to do throughout the school year is one like so we did state of the union um talks uh in the community. We did well to date we've done three different times um twice at Waters um and we advertised it to everyone and we had amazing turnouts of 24 or 30 people. Um and then we also did the uh chamber event. Um we try to like talk about reassessment. Of course, tonight's the most information we receive because we're getting information as
065it comes. Um and then of course advertising tonight to the community letting them know that we're talking about reassessment. One of the things I think I' we've have found through um through referendums in the processes when you start talking about people's taxes they become interested. So I think as we get closer to the the time in July and as we get more and more information just advertising our board meetings and making sure that people are aware of of what's going on. Okay. Um, at the same time, I'm putting a plug in for this that um, we're also the state's changing our pupil system and so we've also tried to advertise that, let people know, hey, this is coming. These are things that may not go as smoothly in the transition of things. So, um, trying
066to advertise those or communicate those different pieces that are out there. Uh we're open to suggestions on maybe how we can communicate more effectively uh with the community in regards to it because to your point um how many's on now, Steve? Yeah, that will view it. Yeah. But um so but we're open to suggestions on how we could possibly get the information out there. Yeah. right now. Right now, we have more questions and answers at this point. Yeah, I was just going to say and it's such a convoluted topic. It's not like I would, it's not something that you would send out in your superintendent's message, right? I don't even know how you would formulate a sentence or let alone a paragraph about this, but I was just wondering kind of your thoughts on how
067we effectively communicate this to whatever extent possible. Um, I mean we usually we ever do a follow-up like on a workshop like through social media where you know if you missed the meeting last night, tune in and here's the link to the recording. I mean that might be a follow-up on some of these educational pieces where you know there was good discussion around a topic where it's pretty complex. Yeah. Or just like a little snippet like maybe and then they can link to Shea talking about all the knowledge. No, I was going to say this is going to be on our next three agendas. We've got our regular board meeting in two weeks. Tune in. Then we're having another workshop two weeks later where this will be front and center for that workshop because we
068always have a workshop like uh this the last Tuesday in June and that previews our meeting in July because it's at July where we actually have to make the decision about what the new tax rate will be. So, we'll have a regular board meeting two weeks, have a workshop two weeks thereafter, and then I forget what day the uh did we move the date for the board of education meeting in July? So, second Tuesday in July, and that will be when we had the vote. So, there's three more meetings where this will be coming up. We'll know a little bit more at each meeting. We'll be able to refine our thinking at each meeting. Um and you know as always we encourage people to reach out to us with questions, comments and discussion. Um but
069does anybody have if nobody has any more questions for Eric at this point then I think we this is probably a good place to adjourn. We'll have this PowerPoint up right on the website so that folks can uh access it and um in two weeks there'll probably be a revised version of this with more details and then two weeks thereafter with more details and then finally we'll have our meeting in July. Um but with that unless anybody uh has further questions or comments I think we're going to adjourn our meeting. I do want to point out some upcoming hearing dates. The um financial advisory committee meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, June 3rd at 6 p.m. in the Tonio Mar in the Tony Mario building uh down the road from us. Our next regular board
070meeting is Tuesday, June 10th at 7 p.m. here and on Zoom. We have a board workshop on Wednesday, it's Wednesday, Wednesday, June 25th uh here 6 o'clock. It'll be on Zoom. And um the board is also we have to be high school graduations are coming up. The best uh the best thing that happens all year. There are three of them. They are all on the same day. The board attends all three. And we are prisoners at Odessa High School until they're done. So we will be there first thing in the morning for for the What he means is we joyfully celebrate all three high schools. Well, we joyfully celebrate, but we don't try to leave in between the high school graduations because we'd probably never make it back. speak for yourself. Uh so what we're
071going to do is we're going to have um uh two executive sessions uh that day. We will meet out in the what is that? Cafeterium. What do they call that lobby at Odessa High School? Caf? Yeah, we'll just start there. We'll we'll take a vote to go into executive session to discuss certain legal and personnel issues. We will retreat, have an executive session. We will come back and we will do that at uh 11:00 a.m. and then 3:00 p.m. at Odessa High School. Uh and we will be posting public notice about that as well. But that's in addition to the other things I said. We'll have two executive sessions on Saturday, June 7th. So with that, I thank everybody for coming. Um and uh we are adjourned.