Buncombe County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to revert to older property values and raise the county’s property tax rate by about 42%, preserving a budget and substantially altering the tax rate that commissioners had just approved just last month.
Although Buncombe just finalized reappraisals at the start of the year, the county will use property values based on its 2021 reappraisal for this year’s tax bills. Commissioners also raised the tax rate from 43.2 cents to 61.54 cents per $100 of assessed value to generate the revenue needed to fund the adopted budget.
The new rate also accounts for an estimated $1.8 million loss in public service utility tax revenue caused by the return to the older appraisal schedule.
At Tuesday’s special meeting, commissioners spoke with ire about state lawmakers’ decision to intervene in the county’s tax and budget process, with Commissioner Parker Sloan describing it “a move that hurts everybody.”
“It makes me wonder. Do the members of the legislature understand how property taxes work and how the system of local government works?” he said. “Do they not understand that? Or are they playing partisan games with people’s lives and livelihoods?”
Sloan was referencing the new state law that temporarily blocks Buncombe from using 2026 real estate values. State Bill 889 forced the county to reopen its budget — after the county had mailed new assessment notices and used the reappraised values to build its record-high $698 million spending plan.
During a visit to Asheville this week, Gov. Josh Stein criticized the law.
“I think that as a state, we should be making it easier for local governments to deal with recovery instead of harder,” he told BPR.
Lawmakers did provide the county with another option. A follow-up law, Senate Bill 474, would have allowed Buncombe to use 2026 property values after all. But the final version included a costly condition: should Buncombe opt to use new property tax values, it would have to adopt a revenue-neutral property tax rate of 40 cents per $100 of assessed value, down from the 43.2-cent rate commissioners adopted in June.
The change would have reduced county revenue by $24.8 million, a move that County Manager Avril Pinder said would “negatively impact the programs and level of service we provide our communities” and force cuts to schools, public safety, human services and other programs.
Board Chair Amanda Edwards said the state’s decision “undermines” the county’s recent work to build a budget around more accurate and equitable property values, something she said residents have expressed concern about for years.
“And because the General Assembly continues to target Buncombe County, we are, yet again, being withheld from doing the right thing,” she said. “This was not something that we asked for.”
What does the new rate mean for your tax bill?
The tax rate increase does not mean every property owner’s bill will increase by 42%.
Whether an individual bill goes up or down depends on how much a property has appreciated since the last reappraisal.
County estimates show that a homeowner whose appraisal increased by roughly 42% would pay about the same under either scenario. Those whose values didn't increase much could pay more under the older values, while those whose properties appreciated more sharply could pay less.
Additionally, Helene-impacted properties will not have to use pre-storm assessments, according to Eric Cregger, the county’s property assessor.
The county regularly checks damaged properties and adjusts them as their condition changes. For instance, if a Swannanoa home was valued at $300,000 before Helene, then reduced to $100,000 because of severe flood damage, it would remain at the lower value as long as it had not been repaired, Cregger explained.
As the county recalculates tax bills using old values, Pinder said residents should expect some delays in receiving this year’s bills. The change also adds work for an appraisal office already processing more than 16,000 appeals of the 2026 values.
“Staff is now focused on making sure we comply with whatever the law is, versus working on other work that could be done,” Pinder said. “This legislation has definitely caused additional work on the staff in the appraisal office.”
The changes will ripple down from the county, to Asheville, Black Mountain and other municipalities that rely on property values established by Buncombe. The county has calculated that municipalities will experience an additional loss of $298,000 in public utility revenue.
Public service companies are valued by the N.C. Department of Revenue, not the county, and county officials said the loss stems from the state’s equalization of those values.
Asheville City Council is scheduled to meet today to consider changes to its own budget and property tax rate.
Gerard Albert III contributed to this report.
