About 800 landowners seek formal assessment hearing
The owners of fewer than 1% of the nearly 200,000 properties in Sussex County requested a formal hearing by the March 31 deadline following the first countywide reassessment since 1973, County Administrator Todd Lawson said April 1.
About 800 owners chose to seek an appeal before the Sussex County Board of Assessment Review.
Hearings began last month and will continue through this month as the county works to finalize the property tax rolls that will be used to calculate tax bills that will be distributed in August to fund county and school district budgets.
The county is scheduled to complete its 2026 budget in June, and part of the process will be lowering the property tax rate to compensate for the drastically increasing assessments. The county plans to ensure the assessment update does not result in additional revenue, compared to last year.
School districts are allowed by state law to increase their property tax revenue by up to 10% following an assessment update.
Lawson said the final assessments speak for themselves.
“Framed another way, the owners of 99 out of 100 parcels apparently saw no reason to contest, and, I think that’s a testament to the fairness of a fact-based process,” Lawson said. “The credit goes to our staff, led by Finance Director Gina Jennings and Assessment Director Chris Keeler, for guiding us through this very cumbersome project, and certainly the public for their patience.”
Anyone still not satisfied after the formal appeal process can take their case to Superior Court.
The county has provided additional information about the revaluation project on its website at sussexcountyde.gov/reassessment.
The total assessed value of taxable properties in Sussex County increased to $91 billion under the new assessments, more than 20 times the total value in 1973, according to figures released by the county.
The countywide reassessment was spurred by an education funding lawsuit filed against the state of Delaware and all three counties in 2018. The case was settled in 2021, with all three counties agreeing to conduct property reassessments.
Sussex County hired Tyler Technologies to update assessments.
After it distributed tentative assessment data to property owners, the company staff held informal hearings from November to January for those who challenged the figures. A total of 11,647 hearings were scheduled, but 731 property owners did not show and 293 canceled. Of those who requested hearings, 6,082, or 52%, resulted in a change, while 4,541, or 39%, did not.
Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.
His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.
Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper.
Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.
