by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Property tax notices were mailed about a week and a half ago and City Council and the Property Appraiser’s Office are preparing for the 1,000-2000 complaints that roll in every year from people who think there has been some kind of mistake.
City Council issued a public service announcement last week — like it does every summer — explaining that all taxpayers have the right to file a petition for review by the Value Adjustment Board if a discrepancy is found on the notice.
Property taxes are a little different each year, depending on what the various taxing authorities in Tallahassee have established and what the market is doing. This year there was a 1.6 percent increase in homesteaded property in Duval County, according to Property Appraiser Ernie Mastroianni. Not enough, apparently, to cause much of a stir.
“Most of the complaints come in from people with rental properties,” said Mastroianni. “Because those have no limit on the rate of increase.”
The way it works is this: property owners receive the tax notice in the mail. Then, if they don’t like what they see, they have 15 days to go to the property appraiser’s office on Forsyth Street and pick up a petition. There are people there, greeters, who lead taxpayers to staff officers armed with stacks of tax records, who will attempt to set things straight.
“Frequently,” said Mastroianni, “it’s not that we’ve made a mistake, it’s that people don’t really want to pay these taxes.”
If they still don’t like the numbers, property owners can take the petition to City Hall to file it with the Value Adjustment Board, which includes three City Council members, two School Board members and a Special Master. There, the two sides — property owner and property appraiser — present their case.
Depending on how big the case load is each year, the Value Adjustment Board hires up to 21 Special Masters to hear cases at a big complaint event at the Osborn Center, according to City Council member Warren Alvarez, who chairs the Council’s Value Adjustment Board.
And although a final tally of how many complaints the property appraiser and City Council receive each year won’t happen until later in the year, Mastroianni said that he thinks that, because of the modest 1.6 percent increase, the numbers will be down this year — maybe by as much as 15-20 percent.
“We’ve got the whole office working to make sure people don’t have to wait long,” said Mastroianni. “We get people to fill out cards and they come back with positive comments. They may not be happy about their taxes, but they’re happy with the process, the courtesy and the professionalism.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time.”
Alvarez said regardless how many people are trickling in — there were only a few Tuesday— that everybody waits until the last minute.
“That’s just the American way, I guess,” he said.
He said they will remain firm on making Sept. 9 the last day to receive petitions.
“If we let one person slide, then we open the door for everybody to slide,” said Alvarez. “But some complaints are legit.”
Alvarez said they are looking into some personnel changes that will prevent people from having to walk from the appraiser’s office on Forsyth Street to City Hall.
“By next year, we want to be able to send some staff members over to the Property Appraiser’s Office so everything can be handled in one spot,” he said.
Alvarez said all the cases that ultimately need to go before a General Master should be resolved by November.
“The cases that go all the way to court, well, those are out of our hands,” he said.
Steps for filing a petition
Here’s the procedure issued by the property appraiser for having a property tax assessment complaint considered:
If you have a complaint regarding a property tax assessment or denial of an exemption, you have the right to file a petition for review by the Value Adjustment Board (VAB). Petitions to the VAB must satisfy each of the following two steps in order to be considered.
1. The petition must be completed in full and notarized on a form prescribed by the Department of Revenue. These forms are available without cost to the taxpayer at the Yates Building in the Property Appraiser’s Office.
2. The petition must be filed (not just mailed) with the clerk of the VAB on the fourth floor of City Hall no later than Sept. 9. Petitions that are not actually received by the clerk before the close of business on Sept. 9 may be rejected as untimely, even if they have previously been placed in the mail.
Failure to follow each of these steps may result in the petition not being considered by the VAB.