Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the September 8, 2026 work session of the Gas County Board of Commissioners. My name is Chad Brown. I serve as chairman of the board as well as the commissioner of the Riverbend Township. I would like to welcome our viewers and thank Spectrum Cable and AT&T for making it possible for our citizens. For our television and live stream audience, I would like to present your Gas County Commission beginning on my far right.

Good evening, Scott Sheehan, Gastonia Township. Jim Bailey, South Point Township.

Good evening, Kathy Kloniger, Dallas Township.

Happy day after Labor Day, Bob Hovis, Cradders Mountain Township.

Good evening, Tom Keegler, Gastonia Township.

The first item tonight is proclamations, commendations, awards, and certificates. I would now ask Commissioner Hovis to now proclaim the events of September 11th and recognize September 11th as the first responders day. Commissioner Hovis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If there's anyone with our first responder community and or veterans that would like to join me, you're more than welcome to. I think that's fitting in reference to the 9-11 recognition. If not, I'll just go ahead and read the proclamation. I see a few coming. I will say that this spring, my wife and I took our oldest granddaughter after graduating high school on a trip to New York City. We've decided we're going to do that with each of our four grandkids, and that's a special time with my wife and myself with them after they've accomplished one of the many milestones we hope they accomplish in their young lives. While we were in New York, my granddaughter and my wife and myself and my daughter, who said she had to go with her oldest daughter, we had the opportunity to visit the 9-11 memorial. And it's absolutely amazing. And two or three nights ago on YouTube, they showed the inner sanctum that very few people have ever been in, into that memorial down in the basement. And it's really amazing to see what's been done and what we've tried to do to commemorate an event that happened so many years ago and had such a profound impact on our country, on everyone in this country. But thank you folks for joining me. I'll read this. Whereas the terrorist attack of September the 11th, 2001, have forever changed the lives of Americans. And 25 years later, the people of the United States and around the world continue to mourn the tremendous loss of innocent life. And whereas the morning of Tuesday, September the 11th, 2001, the Al-Qaeda terrorist group coordinated a series of attacks in the United States using four hijacked passenger airliners to kill more than 3,000 people and to injure over 6,000 others. And whereas passengers of the American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93, among the thousands of victims in the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, perished in the attacks. And whereas America will forever be grateful for the diligent acts of bravery and the sacrifice of first responders, law enforcement personnel, state and local officials, volunteers, and the countless others who aided in the innocent victims of those attacks and in doing so bravely risked and gave their own lives And whereas our country's resolve has been demonstrated time and time again over the last 25 years by many sacrifices of those who have stepped forward to protect the cause of freedom, Members of the United States Armed Services, intelligence agencies, diplomatic service corps individuals, Homeland Security, law enforcement personnel, and first responders and their families have given so much to protect our freedom and to defend the security of the United States. And whereas, because of those sacrifices, September 11th will never and should never be just another day in the hearts and minds of the people of the United States. Now therefore be it resolved that the Gaston County Board of Commissioners recognizes the 25th anniversary and commemorates the lives of those lost and injured in the attacks of September 11 2001 and honors their loved ones for the courage and the faithfulness to endure and carry on the Endure and carry on the board further salutes the heroes that place themselves in harm's way on that fateful day and and the sacrifices of those who served and continue to serve to keep us safe at home and abroad as we stand together united and steadfast as a nation. This to be resolved by the Gaston County Board of Commissioners recognized September 11th as First Responders Day as an annual legal holiday as established by the North Carolina General Assembly as a part of the 2017 Appropriations Act, House Bill 257, to be adopted the 22nd day of September 2026. Gentlemen, thank you for what you do for our citizens. We can never say enough for what you do, and we're appreciative of your efforts, and all of us are appreciative of the actions that took place by all those involved with the September 11th tragedy. Thank you so much. And I have another one I'd like to do. If Mr. Juan Garcia and anyone with him would like to join me, you're welcome to do so. Sorry, that's a granddaughter. That's the only child that's not silenced on this call, because she's usually on the road. She's a freshman at Wake Forest University. This is to recognize the National Hispanic Heritage Month. whereas Hispanic Heritage Month has the opportunity to celebrate the culture, history, and contributions of Hispanic American citizens and highlights their countless achievements and contributions. whereas the observance began in 1968 as the Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon B. Johnson. This was observed annually until 1988 when it was expanded by President Ronald Reagan to the period of September the 15th through October the 15th and became National Hispanic Heritage Month and has been celebrated annually since then. And whereas more than 60 million Americans of Hispanic origin today contribute to our national diversity, enriching the quality of American life, with century-old traditions that reflect the multi-ethnic and multicultural customs of their communities, while adding their own distinct and dynamic perspectives to the story of our country. And whereas this observation affords special opportunities to become more knowledgeable about Hispanic heritage and to honor the many Hispanic Americans who represent a significant and fast-growing demographic of Gaston County, we honor the invaluable ways that these citizens contribute to our country and our county. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Gaston County Board of Commissioners hereby proclaim the month beginning September the 15th and ending October the 15th, 2026, as National Hispanic Heritage Month and urge all citizens to join us in celebrating the great contributions of Hispanic Americans to our county, our state, and our nation. This will also be adopted on the 22nd day of September in our voting meeting.

Thank you.

Well, Mr. Chairman, members of the county commission, the county manager, and distinguished guests, thank you so much for this proclamation. And on behalf of many Americans with Hispanic heritage, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll now call on Commissioner Keger to do the commendation for Ms. Kathy Connor and naming the Connor Family Lobby. Commissioner Keger.

Thank you. Kathy, John, you want to join me?

And you're on TV, too. Thank you.

It's a privilege for me to do this. Kathy and John have been our neighbors for many years, and they're just the finest people you'll ever run into. We all have people like that in their lives, and this is a couple right here. But I'll get to the commendation. Whereas Mrs. Kathy Bauckham Connor was born and raised in Gastonia, graduated from the second graduating class of Hunter Huss High School, and married her high school sweetheart, John Connor, in 1966. Together, they built a family and a life deeply rooted in the Gaston County community. And whereas, Kathy has been a devoted member of the First Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church in Gastonia. I should have just said ARP. Where she served faithfully, including a member of the choir. And whereas, after living in Raleigh for 12 years, Kathy and John returned to Gastonia in 1982, where they enrolled their children at Gaston Day School. Kathy soon became involved as a parent and volunteer before joining the school staff where she faithfully served for 25 years as a receptionist and the school secretary until her retirement. And whereas for a quarter of a century Kathy was often the first voice heard on the telephone and the first face encountered on campus greeting generations of students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, and visitors with warmth, kindness, and genuine care, making everyone feel welcomed and at home. And whereas Kathy's quiet dedication, humble spirit, and genuine love for Gaston Day earned her the lasting affection and respect of countless people, who celebrated her throughout the years. And whereas, on July 31 of this year, Gaston Day honored Kathy's service by dedicating the Connor Family Lobby in her name, during the celebration, family, friends, former colleagues, and alumni gathered to honor her, and a recording of Kathy's longtime telephone greeting was played, allowing her familiar voice to once again bring smiles to those that were gathered. And whereas Kathy's 25 years of service represents a lasting legacy of kindness, loyalty, and devotion, Gaston Day School and the dedication of the Conner Family Library ensures that her welcoming spirit will remain a part of the school for generations to come. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Gaston County Board of Commissioners hereby recognize and commends Mrs. Kathy Connor for her 25 years of dedicated service and extends its sincere appreciation for the lasting impact she has made on generations of Spartan students, families, colleagues, alumni, and friends throughout Gaston County. And this too will be adopted at our voting meeting on the 22nd of September.

And I will present that to you and ask you to say a word. Okay, thank you.

It is a privilege being here, and I so appreciate Tom and the Board of Commissioners for honoring me with this recognition, and I really appreciate it so much. Being a Gaston Day for 25 years was really a very... humble experience. It was my second home and I really cherish those those years and I'm so appreciative of all of you and guests today for what they have done for me and I appreciate being here tonight. Thank you so much.

I will now call on Commissioner Cloninger to do the commendation celebrating Pastor Kenneth Ramseur Sr. of Friday Memorial Baptist Church in Dallas. Commissioner Cloninger. Thank you.

I have the honor to recognize a commendation celebrating Pastor Kenneth Ramseur, Sr., of Friday Memorial Baptist Church in Dallas upon his retirement after 46 years of service. Whereas Pastor Kenneth Ramseur was raised in a Christian home by his late parents, William A. Ramseur, Jr. and Shirley Ramseur, who instilled in him a love for God, his word, his people, And whereas Pastor Ramsour has devoted 46 years of faithful service to the Lord, serving in numerous ministry capacities before becoming pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Vail, North Carolina, and subsequently pastor of Friday Memorial Baptist Church in Dallas, North Carolina, where he has faithfully served since August 1990. And whereas throughout his ministry, Pastor Ramsour has demonstrated visionary leadership, compassion, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to preaching and living God's word. Under his leadership, Friday Memorial Baptist Church has grown spiritually and expanded its outreach to the community, including the establishment of the Friday Memorial Christian Child Development Center. And whereas... Pastor Ramsour has been blessed with a devoted wife of 54 years, First Lady Minnie Pearl Ramsour, and a loving family who have faithfully supported him throughout his years of ministry and service. And whereas Pastor Ramsour is retiring from his pastoral responsibilities after 46 years of dedicated service, leaving a lasting legacy of faith, fellowship, and service that will continue to bless generations to come. Now, therefore, it be resolved that the Gaston County Board of County Commissioners hereby commends and congratulates Pastor Kenneth Ramsour Sr. for his 46 years of faithful Christian service and extends his sincere gratitude for his unwavering dedication and congratulates him upon his retirement. May God continue to bless him, First Lady Minnie Pearl Ramsour, and their family with many years of health, peace, and continued joy in the Lord. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Matthew chapter 21 and verse 21 to be adopted the 22nd day of September 2026. Congratulations, so dearly. Thank you.

say a few words I just want to thank the commissioners and man for such an honor this this certainly does mean a lot to me after 36 years in Gaston County and serving the community is such a blessing but I thank God that he has given me peace about this retirement I'm retiring from pastoring not from ministering and never from preaching God's word and I just want to thank you I appreciate it and I never thought that I would ever be given this kind of recognition and honor and thank you so much we love you and we appreciate you and we'll still be around if we can help the community in any way please let us know thank you God bless you thank you

It is with great pleasure that the Gadsden County Board of Commissioners honor citizens who have unselfishly given of their time, talents, skills, and energies in service as an appointee to one of our many boards or commissions. This type of service is the foundation of citizen involvement in our county government and is here to helping shape the future of our community. We gratefully acknowledge the work of the following individuals and certificates of appreciation have been forwarded to them. Charles Vincent, Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee. Lorna Ross, Animal Care and Enforcement. No one was signed up for citizens' comments. The next item is Presentations. Schedule, Standard, and Rules of 2027 Reappraisal of Gasson County Real Property. Ms. Chelsea Tarbush, Tax Director, Gasson County Tax Office, will now present the Schedule, Standard, and Rules.

Good evening, commissioners. I want to introduce I have John Terrell, who's our assistant tax director of real property. He will be joining me as well with this presentation. And then we have Jake Lackey, who's with Snyder Geospatial. He will be doing some of the presentation towards the end, talking about the statistical analysis and modeling and what we do. with them as a vendor. So just to start, just to start, we did present the schedule of values on August the 25th. We made some updates as of today. I've sent that out. We will be posting those updates online this afternoon or this evening. after the meeting. But we put together some just general information and feel free to jump in ask any questions if you have any and also have the schedules up here if we need to go through anything. But mass appraisal is the approach that North Carolina counties use to estimate property values accurately fairly and consistently and equitably under North Carolina law. The idea of this is one appraisal model can estimate the value of thousands of properties instead of just like fee appraisal where you're looking at one property. North Carolina law states that property is appraised at its true value in market value, which is true value in money. And the goal is similar properties are treated similarly. I'm so just some statistical information for Gaston County as far as funding this information was pulled straight off of the Gaston County website as you can see at the bottom it's just the general fund revenue for FY27 and as you can see the highest the property taxes at 63% that's your highest fund balance or fund revenue source and then the formula for your property taxes is your home value divided by 100 here in North Carolina times the tax rate whatever that may be and in the tax rate for Gaston County is 59 9 but there are municipalities that have different tax rates that you have to add to that and then also if you're in a fire district so that tax rate could look differently for everyone and that information is also on our website as well And so this is the services that those revenue sources pay for. And this came as well off the budget for the FY27 budget brief. And it just shows, you know, 32% goes to public safety, 26 to human services, 18 to education, 17 to general government, and 7% to other. And then it's got the capital fund highlight as well. Again, I just pulled that information straight off. uh... so just start with the simplest question going into the twenty seven reappraisal is excuse me what would this property likely sell for in an open market and you know that's the first question that we always hear and see uh... when dealing with citizens is why can't sell my property for this much but they also haven't been in the market so they're unsure of what that looks like but their neighbors property is selling for that much so imagine a thousand homes It's not practical for an appraiser to individually assign a unique value to every property every year. So mass appraisal uses data, rules, models, and quality checks to estimate values for many properties at once. The best example that I could give you is everybody's at one time played, you know, got marbles in a jar, M&Ms, bubble gum, whatever you got in a jar. Imagine a jar full of marbles. You can't count every single one, but by looking at the jar size, you can make an educated estimate. So appraising a property using mass appraisal works the same way. It uses facts like the size, location, age, condition, and recent sales of similar properties to estimate value without needing every detail of every single property. So fee appraisal versus mass appraisal. uh... sophie appraisal is what most people are used to that's one appraiser one property a single expert visits one property studies it closely and writes a detailed appraisal report and it's effective as of that date of that appraisal report on this type of appraisal is typically used to sell a property refinance a mortgage uh... for property tax purposes we use mass appraisal And it's one system valuing thousands of properties. The county builds one fair system, which is your schedule of values, and applies it consistently to every property at once. So it's used for property tax evaluation on all properties in the county. There's three different approaches to value that we use to value all properties, whether that be your residences, commercial, industrial, but you've got your sales approach, is what are similar properties selling for? And you can look at that information online. We have a tool, it's the Comprer tool, it's actually through Snyder. for, it says Spaceless, it used to be Spaceless, they're now Snyder. But you can see the sales in your area or you can look at anybody else's. And it's the most intuitive for typical homes and many other market properties. Uses comparable sales and adjustments for differences. The second approach is the cost approach. So what is the current cost of producing an improvement of equal utility? Useful where sales are limited or improvements are specialized. And then the third is income. And that's what would this property be worth based on the income that it can produce. And this is common for income producing properties such as apartments, commercial real estate. So the Mass Appraisal process, there's about six different steps in a nutshell. You collect the data. We have staff that's constantly, that's what they're doing, they're out in the field, they're looking at sales, building data, land data, location, permits, income, expense data, where that's applicable. The second step is we're grouping properties into neighborhoods. And when we say neighborhoods, we don't mean like your everyday neighborhood that you're used to. We're talking about our tax neighborhoods. We're stratifying properties based on geographical location and similarities. So we have, and they're in the schedules, we have 1,700 neighborhoods, I believe, in Gaston County for tax purposes. And then we are doing sales verification and review. And we discussed that a little bit at the last meeting. The sales verification is comparing estimates with actual sales and checking for consistency, and it's conducting market research. That's us looking at sales, sending out I&Es, cost forms to businesses for them to provide us data so that we can build those cost tables. And then we're creating and testing the model. And so that means measuring how property characteristics relate to market prices and apply the model to properties that did not sell. to be 100% of what market value would be. And then we're applying those values, which is where we're currently at in the reappraisal step for the 27 reappraisal. And that's applying the values to our properties and checking for consistency. And when we're checking for consistency, that's done on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis, and it's not just our office. you know we have edits we have hundreds of edits that our team runs to verify multiple different data points and then you have people that's qc in the work of multiple multiple different processes so it's touched multiple different times and then you're reviewing so we're investigating those outliers correcting any data that needs to be corrected you know document methods and finalizing values and mailing notices which will take place in february We will mail the final value notices in February, and then you can start to appeal your 2027 property value from that point.

Can you just tell people what I and E's are so they have it at home?

Yes, I'm sorry. Income and expense statements, and those are sent to businesses in Gaston County to help us develop our cost models based on the income and expenses that those business property types have so that we can develop models for Gaston County instead of using national resources.

And those are voluntary, correct?

That is correct those are voluntary. And it was like 20 commissioner she had asked me and I don't have the number in front of me but it's 20 something percent I think I had spoke and said maybe a 3rd but it was actually a little less than that that we had sent out and received back was about 2324% or other. I was around low 20's based on what you said yes, so 25% or less is what we had received back from those voluntary income and expense statements. Okay, so this is just the statutes that govern the appraisal process. So you've got the North Carolina General Statutes 105-283 that's saying what is true value. And that requires that all property, real and personal, shall be valued or appraised or valued at its true value in money and you'll see that over and over a true value and market value and that's what we're talking about when we're talking about that as far as it relates to the statute then you've got your uniform assessment The statutes state that it establishes a uniform assessment standard so that property is assessed for taxation at its true value or applicable use value. And then you've got the reappraisal statute that requires counties to reappraise all real property at least once every eight years. Gaston County is on a four-year cycle, and that's been since 2015 when this board... approved that resolution to do a four-year cycle. Most counties are on a four-year cycle, and I actually have that below. I looked on the website on Friday, on DOR's website, and 37 out of 100 counties in North Carolina are on a 2027 schedule. In 2023, there was 33 out of 100 counties that was on that cycle. So that means either people are on an eight-year cycle, they've had to move that up based on the fact that they're either below or above the sales ratio standard, But there is 37 out of 100 counties in North Carolina on a 27 cycle. So the easiest way to explain what is a reappraisal is it's a market reset. And what I mean by that is property prices change over time. The market changes daily. If anybody's in the real estate market, you're aware of that. So the reappraisal values remain the same for four years after the January 1 reappraisal date. So once we mail the value notices, those values stay in place for four years regardless of what that market looks like. If it takes off or it goes down, those values are in place for that four-year period. All properties are reappraised using the January 1 reappraisal date. This takes a snapshot of the market on a single day when all properties should be valued at 100% of market. A reappraisal equalizes property values, so the tax base more accurately reflects market values as of the required valuation date, which would be January 127. A higher appraised value does not automatically mean that your tax bill will rise by the same percentage. That, again, is set by municipalities and the boards that govern those municipalities for the tax rates. And then your tax bill. Again, the formula for the tax bill is your assessed value divided by 100 times the tax rate for whatever that looks like for the homeowner or property owner in that municipality. So the schedule values, what is this book that I gave y'all that's 300 something pages? It's the rule book by which we live by. And this is what it does. It provides the schedule standards and rules for constantly or consistently appraising real property. It helps answer questions such as how is land valued? How are building costs estimated? How is depreciation treated? And how are different property types handled? It's a lot to go through, but it's all in there. And why it matters. Without common rules, two similar properties could be valued very differently simply because two different people handled them. And we have seen that before. I mean, I think everybody has. And the goal is accuracy, consistency, transparency, and fairness. So the bottom line is a fair property tax system should not depend on whether or when a property is sold. A good amass appraisal estimates the market value shared by similar properties at a common point in time. Then it checks the results from several angles, accuracy, consistency, and fairness. And Jake's actually going to talk about that more in a little while. So the appeal process, I didn't go too far into this because that's what we're doing right now with these reappraisal presentations is educating homeowners or property owners and telling them the appeal process. And we have a whole booklet that's out there on the website, which is what this QR code goes to. But first, you need to review the property record card and make sure that the characteristics of the property that we have assigned to your property are accurate. If they're not, there's a survey online, and you can fill out that survey, and it comes straight to us, and we can go from there with changing your property characteristics. So if we don't have the right data, your value is not going to be right. Ask the assessor's office about the value and the data that we use to establish it. We actually had a meeting with a property owner last week that owns a chain of hotels in North and South Carolina that brought in data that, you know, helped support some of the stuff that we were seeing, but with some of the updates that you also received in the schedule of values. If you believe the value is incorrect, use the county's Board of Equalization and Review process according to the applicable deadlines and procedures. And that board is an independent board of the tax office that is appointed by the Board of County Commissioners. and there's 10 members on that board, five at-large and five alternate. And then the strongest appeal is an evidence-based appeal. Incorrect property data, relevant comparable sales, or other credible evidence showing the appraised value does not reflect the true market value. And the goal of an appeal is not simply my value is too high. It is here's evidence showing what the value should be. And, you know, we have tools that help citizens figure out what their value should be, and it's at their disposal for free. And that's all you can scan that QR code and it'll take you to our reappraisal site where all of that is. There's tutorials on how to use that site. And of course, our information is on there and we'll be happy to walk anybody through it or they can come in as well. So I'm going to call on John for this one to walk through valuing a single family parcel.

Good evening. So put together a brief overview of the different aspects that go into valuing a residential property to help people understand how we arrive at a value. It's not just using a Zillow value or looking up something online. There's a lot of components that go into it and there are tables for each of these rates in the schedule of values. And what I'm about to describe is outlined in pages 150 through 152 of the schedule values. So, for example, if you had a residential structure at 2,752 square feet, our current base rate for a residential single-family home is $185 per square foot. After applying that base rate to that heated square foot. We also have different factors based on size and story height that we must apply to that. If you think about, regarding the size factor, if you go to the convenience store and you buy a sundrop for $2, if you go to Sam's Club, buy a whole case of sundrop, you're not paying $2 a piece for those. You're getting a discount. So therefore, the bigger the house gets, the board discount on a per unit basis would give for that. The smaller it gets, you may see an increase on that per unit basis. So after applying the factors that are given to this, we had arrived at a component value of $360,169. Looking at some of the other aspects of the property, the next line item is number of bedrooms. Now, wanted to make clear that we do not assign value to bedrooms, that value is encompassed within the square foot rate. So if you happen to see a difference Thank you. If you happen to see a difference in the bedroom count, let us know and we'll be happy to correct that. However, that will not constitute a value change. So that is a sign of zero value. We have a base model house that includes two full bathrooms anything under two or over two each full bathroom is valued at six thousand dollars so because the base model includes two and this has two then that would be equal to the base and therefore have zero value that is included in the 185 base rate The half bathrooms, these are valued at $4,000 per unit. We have one half bath here, so therefore it would be $4,000 value for that component. Now these size factors and story height factors do not apply to this. Additionally, one of the other components is the foundation. If the subject house is on a slab, We only use the base floor square footage to determine the size factor for that. We don't determine the entire heated square footage because if you think of a two-story home, that foundation only encompasses that base floor. It does not encompass the entire heated square footage. So we only want to assign that to the base floor square footage. our current rate for a slab foundation is a negative seven dollars and ninety five cents a square foot a crawl space is our base and with that size factor that applies to that we arrive at a negative eight thousand five hundred and nineteen dollar value for that component Additionally, with a frame garage being attached, 480 square feet, we have a rate of $55.30 per square foot. And the size factors that are used for the attachments are different than what's used for the heated living area, and that is available on a separate page. That would lead to a value of $26,544. So if you add all those up together, you get a value of $382,194, but you're not quite done yet. From there, we assign a quality of construction grade. A C grade is our base grade, that's 100%, no adjustment. Anything above that is above 100, anything below is below 100. So if we assigned a B minus 10 quality grade factor For this property that would correlate with a hundred and fifteen percent adjustment then we also have to take into account depreciation and This is a combination of year built and condition. So the older you get, the more it depreciates. But if it's in a better condition, it may depreciate less than something in a worse condition. So this is average condition for a 2009 house. And per the depreciation charts for the residential single family homes, That would indicate an 18% off for depreciation. And then we have a neighborhood factor. We have pockets around the county that we assign as neighborhoods. And while we design the models to fit the properties as best as we can, there are pockets of areas that may be below or above what the model is hitting. So we need to account for that in a different way. So we have this neighborhood factor and this is applied at the neighborhood level to all properties within that neighborhood. So after applying all of those factors, we arrive at a total improvement value, less depreciation of $396,450. And that would be your That would be your assessed value after all the adjustments. And I mentioned here, we have a base and everything is adjusted off of the base. So our current base house for single family residences is a 1500 square feet, three bedroom, two bath. We include two plumbing fixtures for the kitchen sink and the hot water tank, central heat and air, a crawl space, a gable roof with asphalt shingles, average quality workmanship and materials, vinyl siding you'll see all of these aspects in the schedule of values will have a zero or a hundred percent next to them because that equals the base as you deviate from those you'll see the various plus and minus rates to account for that um these as i mentioned before the size factor charts are different for the attachments versus the main living area we also have difference for the outbuildings as well and then land value is added to the improvement value to determine the total value of the property overall again steps to Go through this process or are located on pages 150 through 152 of the schedule values if anybody's curious about their value I would encourage them they can go look at the schedule values Go through this step-by-step process and be able to arrive at a value So the questions on that With that, I'll turn it back over to Chelsea. Thank you.

The last thing that we have is data verification and a couple different ways that we do that. We do site visits, so you'll see our appraisers out. They have a pre-review and a final review phase, and then you also see our annual team out measuring new construction, looking at permit data. So we do roadside inspections. The pictures are updated. which are the pictures that you see on GIS. Those are our photos that we take. We check for the quality and condition, and that plays into that how to value your property that John just spoke about. We analyze property record cards, which also can be viewed on our website. on the DevNet website on the right hand side all the way down at the bottom. It'll say print property record card. You can print that. You can see your sketch. You can see it all and you should be able to match the codes of your property and the grades and stuff into the schedule of values and any new or missing structures that are notated. We also have data reporting, so we identify any errors, find mismatched characteristics, and the logic testing. And then the picture that you see here is the one that Commissioner Brown had asked me about at the August 25th meeting, talking about the aerial imagery that we do with the mismatched properties, and that's where it takes our sketches, and it overlays over top of that when they do the flight. And if it's good, Obviously, you can see that a match is in blue. A green means there's a slight mismatch. And you can see that on the PowerPoint by seeing that there's some add-ons to some properties from what we originally had. Or red is a major mismatch. And that qualifies as a full measure and list for reappraisal per North Carolina DOR and IAAO standards. We have done that for the past. We did it in 23 for the reappraisal, and we're doing it again in 27. We've already done that flight. We did it. leaf off last year um we got the data back at the beginning i said that backwards leaf off it was a 25 flight we got the data back at the beginning of 25 yeah and then um so that's already in process already been worked on our side So the takeaway, mass appraisal is using data, consistent methods to value many properties at once. It's North Carolina standard is general market value or true value. Reappraisal updates values to reflect the market at the required valuation date, which is January 1st. the reappraisal year which in this case it'd be 27 the schedule of values provides a common framework for the appraisal process for all properties and sales ratio studies help measure level and uniformity and then a properties owner your best tool is accurate data plus credible market evidence so good mass appraisal is not about guessing it is about using evidence consistently which is what we do and any questions for me before I go into The next portion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Start with the conversation in terms of dating. I think that's the pivotal equation for the public to understand. January the 1st is the cutoff date. In other words, if I sold my home on January the 10th for whatever, that's not a valid comp.

Correct.

January 1 kind of closes the door, closes the gate while we look at the cattle that's in the field, houses, and we evaluate their status. So dates do matter. Obviously you can't in 24 hours evaluate all 210,000 homes in Gaston County to these standards.

No, sir.

You start this process and it takes anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

So it's normally three, three and a half year process. So once we finish appeals from the last reval, our team is already out in the field doing pre-review to start picking up data, boots on the ground.

But that's what I'm saying. So there's obviously work continuously going on because you can't just flip a switch. and every house be visited. It's not like Santa Claus coming around on Christmas Eve and coming down the chimney and say, okay, you got two bedrooms, you got three bedrooms. It doesn't work that way. But you have, I'm just being elementary because we got some people that need elementary instruction. So this is what we try to do to do that. So I just want people to understand how dates do matter and play into what the tax office tries to do in coming up with a real market value, correct?

Yes, sir. And the comparable sales during that time frame would be from the last reappraisal date to right before your current reappraisal that's getting ready to go into effect. And talking about going into properties, our staff does not go into properties unless you appeal your property. So there could be stuff on the inside of the house that we're unaware of unless someone has told us or they've appealed or they pulled a permit. We don't know that. So that's one of the reasons why we look at sales is because you can see a lot of improvement data on a property when someone remodels a property because they don't always pull a permit. They'll remodel it and we'll never know. So the condition of that property could change for the next reval. It just, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into that. But the dates for reappraisal as far as sales and looking at comparable properties for sales would be the January of the previous reval to right before, you know, the December 31st of the current reval period.

And I've been fortunate enough to live in my home in Vesper City for 49 years. And as a county commissioner, our houses are looked at by an independent firm, which I'm assuming that that's going to happen within a short time.

Yes, sir.

This year. And the gentleman that came by and reappraised my house couldn't believe that my home in 23 was the age that it was. He said, your home appraises somewhere around seven or eight years old. And that goes back to improvements that have been made and the condition that it's kept. Does it have to be golden chandeliers and gold bathtub fixtures and all that stuff? It's just the overall general condition.

Yes, sir. Yes, and to answer that question, we do use, it'll actually be Tanner Valuation that comes out. We used to do fee appraisals on everyone's property, and we transitioned from that prior to 23. We have an independent, whoever we're consulting with, come out, visit everyone's home, and they actually use one of our listing cards. They take photos, they walk around, and what they're doing is making sure that we have all the data characteristics picked up for your property, and then we're valuing it correctly. So you're actually scrutinized more than the average citizen, as well as some staff members in Gaston County as well.

I think that's fine. Thank you.

As we transition from the North Pole, Commissioner Sheehan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Tarbus, if you could go back to slide six, I believe it was, the approaches to value.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. Let me go back the other way. Well, first, I need to learn how to use this. I might need help. I'm gonna get it up.

There we go.

Okay.

Yeah, just wanted to clarify, there is only one approach that is used on the property when you go through an assessment, correct?

That is not.

Or are there multiples?

So there could be situations where we could look at multiple to see what best fits. You know, there could be a, and I may call on John for this one, you know, if you're talking commercial industrial property, we may look at cost or we may look at income just depending on that property, the characteristics and the data that we have for that property. Most of your residential is going to be the sales. And that's stated on page 35 of the schedule of values. And I only say that because I just updated that for y'all. Don't ask me any other page numbers. I think it's 35. It is 35. So it breaks down the residential, commercial, and industrial and which approach we would use in what order. But that's just a broad overview for that property type. It really looks at the property itself and the characteristics of that property is what's gonna determine which approach to value is used. But this, by law, is the three approaches to value that we can use.

Okay, and the decision to use multiple approaches is made in-house, is that correct? Yes. Through your staff?

Yes, or the policy, the schedule of values that we have in place, yes sir.

Okay, on the income approach, Give me some background as to how is that fair and equitable based on, let's say, if it's a commercial piece of property, and one is generating, producing some widget, let's just say, that is very lucrative, and you have a competitor next door that is not in the same field, that's not generating revenue. So how are we being fair and equitable on the income approach in that scenario?

John can take it away. Sure.

so that's a great question when we talk about income approach it's sometimes a misconception that we're looking at what income is that business producing however the income that we're looking at is what is what could that building rent for so regardless if You've got company A producing a certain widget at a million dollars a year, or company B, a certain widget at $5,000 a year. If they're similar type buildings and they're paying the same rent for those, then they should be valued the same. Now, to maintain consistency, we don't use actual income from a certain subject. We use market rates. So we go out, and that's why we have some of the ranges we do in the schedule of values. to allow for the market rates to be assigned rather than the actual specific property so that helps with consistency across the board thank you sir thank you mr chair

I have one question, Chelsea. It's just back to a slide as well. When you get to it, when he started using base model, it made me think when he's using a two-bathroom as the base and a half-bath as the base for one, why is that value not $3,000 rather than $4,000? Because we have $4,000 is what we rank it out as to a half-bath.

John can answer that question as well. Y'all are asking the nitty-gritty technical questions, which I'm going to let him answer.

So instead of $3,000, if you look at it, let's say like $2,000 per fixture. A full bath will have three fixtures. $2,000 per will be $6,000. A half bath will have two fixtures. $2,000 per would be $4,000. So that's how we arrive at that. So when I talk about a fixture, I'm talking about a sink, a bathtub, a shower. If you have a dual bowl vanity, that may count as two fixtures. So any kind of a toilet, those would be your typical bathroom fixtures. We also have additional plumbing fixtures that we do account for on a separate line item where if you have a wet bar in your basement or if you have a dog bath, something like that, that would count as an extra fixture.

So the way I could lower my time is to have all those enclosed at once, bidet, toilet, sink, all in one place. That's right. Okay, just want to make sure. I want to check on that because people have asked that question, but thank you for that clarification. Sure thing.

Any other questions? All right. So next I will introduce Jake Lackey. He is going to go over some modeling for Gaston County. And again, we'll bring him back after we do the values in February to actually look at some Gaston County data and show you what that looks like. But now it's just kind of a broad overview. So this is Jake Lackey with Snyder Geospatial.

Good evening. Can you guys hear me okay? My name is Jake Lackey. I'm with Schneider Geospatial. It's based out of Indiana, Indianapolis, Indiana. We have an office in Iowa and Ireland, oddly enough, but I am a local. So I'm a lifelong resident of Lincoln County, so maybe you can tell by the accent. I visit Gaston County often, usually the golf courses if I can, but I'm going to go over market modeling tonight and how Gaston County views these models. So Market modeling provides an independent valuation method. So if you've ever gone on Zillow or Redfin or something like that, you'll see a number on there, and they're just using a model to generate that. In fact, most of the things we do in our daily life has probably been modeled. If you've ever gone to a grocery store or gone to Amazon, they've modeled your behavior to figure out what's the best way to get you to shop there and what's the best way to get you to spend money there. So that's all been modeled before. So what we're doing with Gaston County is building a market model, and what we're doing with that is we're going to compare that to the CAM value or the Gaston County value. Where they're similar, you know, that's great. But what we're really looking for are where there's differences. So where does this market model say maybe the value is $300,000 and the county's got $250,000? We want to investigate those properties further. Basically, it's an independent check versus this CAMA value or versus the Schedule of Values value. So the process is... identify sales and that's done in the county so you're using qualified sales with gaston county right now we're sitting at over 8 000 sales in this model and like they said they're going back to 2023 years ago it was a little harder to go back that far because the market was appreciating so much now the market's a lot more steady so you can go back further in time without having to make a lot of adjustments to that we use a few different methodologies for our models we use regression models we have two different regression models in there and we also have a three comp models that we build, and I'll explain the differences in those in just a second. We combine those five models into one model, what we call an ensemble model. If you've ever seen hurricane predictions, if you've ever watched the Weather Channel and they've got the lines on there, those are all independent models, but they put them all together and blend them, and to figure out where that hurricane may or may not make landfall. So again, we're using Gaston County qualified sales to build these models. So what does multiple regression do? Well, in my opinion, it quantifies human interactions. So every sale price was an interaction between two groups of people or maybe more. And what we're trying to do is put a mathematical quantification on that. It's going to look at the relationship between characteristics, bathrooms, square footage, year built, depreciation, grade. It's going to look at the relationship between that and the sale price. So if you've got a sale price and you know what it's sold for, so you have that known number you also know the square footage you know this data that the county has collected that's also a known so we're taking those knowns and looking at that relationship examples like I said heated area garage area bathrooms you're built land value quality of the subject so yeah it's using actual property sales to generate a coefficient or a number associated with that attribute the comp model What that does is take property characteristics. It's still using those characteristics, but now it's going to use a rules engine. It might look into a neighborhood, or it's going to take a subject property in any neighborhood. It's going to draw a circle around there, and it's going to say, all right, do we have five comps that are within one mile in the same neighborhood, plus or minus, say, 20% of the same square footage within five years of the same year built, some other rules in there. If it finds five comps, it'll value that property based on that. on the regression and the location, and it'll set it to the side. If it doesn't find those comps, it'll just go out to a little more of a broad area, maybe a little more relaxed rules. So while the regression can help account for the differences between the subject and a comp, that location is also obviously vital, and we can test all these results using ratio studies. I don't know if you guys are familiar with ratio studies, but it's just a check. It's how IWO checks the equity and accuracy of a revaluation. We can do the same thing with these models as we can get all the IWA stats out of the model. Then we compare that model to the county's value and do the ratios there too. And what we're really trying to do is we're looking for properties where those models disagree with the CAMA value. If they disagree, then the county can spend more time looking at that. We're looking at individual properties. We don't only look at individual properties. We'll also look at neighborhoods. So if there's a neighborhood where, let's say, the average model might be $350,000, maybe the schedule of values as it's currently applied is, say, in $300,000. What we'll do is we'll identify that neighborhood. The county can then spend some more time looking at that neighborhood. It's a measure of due diligence, really, is what's going on there. The reason we do the ensemble model is because in a regression, not all regressions are going to value properties the same way. Really inexpensive homes or really expensive homes sometimes can be an outlier, so then this regression might not predict those well, where another regression may. So you use a couple blends there, then on the comp models, do the same thing. So one comp model might value a group a little better than another group, but when you blend them all, it makes it a lot more smooth. I personally think using the CAMA value and the schedule is a great way to get equitable values and accurate. The comp model might be more accurate on some things. The regression might be more accurate on others. But I do think using the modeling techniques that we're using and comparing those to the county value is the way to go, especially from an equity perspective. So yeah, so the ensemble, just so you guys know, We use two regression models and three comp models. So that ensemble model can be five different models, and that's what we're gonna use to generate a value. I'm trying to think if there's, yeah. Oh, I should have mentioned this too. Chelsea was mentioning data cleansing, looking at the aerial, comparing it with square footage and all that kind of stuff. If there's a major data error on a parcel, a lot of times that'll show up in a model as well. So you'll get some wild value that, comes out of left field you're going to want to investigate what's going on with that so then that just cleans the data up further you know aim small miss small kind of thing and and then i put a little map on there just showing kind of one of the methods we use we might put it all on the map and say all right where are these values kind of where where do they highly agree where they disagree uh We can display that kind of stuff on a map, take the county through it and say, hey, this is the area we would focus on, whether it be Cherville or anywhere else. That's how we use those maps. Can you think of anything I missed, guys? Do you guys have any questions?

Any questions from the board at this time? Seeing none, we're still good so far. Mr. Chelsea, I want to thank you for all you guys have done. Are we through? Yes, sir. I want to ask if we can add something to our website. Yes, sir. Can we take a 300,000 model house, $300,000, and we break it down to each individual municipality and to the county and put a summation up there of what each person would have done if they'd have had a $300,000 house. What happened if you live in Gaston? What happens if you live in Stanley? What happens if you live in Macabre? Whatever it may be, we put up those models so everybody can see that, and it kind of gives everybody, because I feel like I'm the... I'm definitely the dumbest one on this board. I'd love to try to see how we could really get it to its easiest, simplest individual with a picture so we can show it, please, if you don't mind.

So just for clarification purposes, you're asking me to, like how we just walked through an example property, put that up, but to also put what the tax bill would look like for each tax rate for that jurisdiction?

And the last reval.

Last reval. Yes. Okay, and then you want us to update that with current once 27 values come out so that they can see. We can do that, that'd be great. Okay, oh yeah, we can do that.

Any other questions from the board at this time? Seeing none, thank you guys for your help and everything. We're gonna be inundating you for a while on things. Do you have anything, Tom? But thank you so much.

All right, thank you.

Other matters, any other matters need to come before the board? David has asked for a closed session. David, do you want to go over those to the subsections, please?

Yes, sir. I do recommend that the board enter a closed session in accordance with North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 under A1, 3, and 6.

Motion to go into closed session? So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Hovis, seconded by Commissioner Sheehan. All in favor? It is unanimous, Madam Clerk. We are now in closed session.

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We'll have a motion to come back out of closed session. So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Sheehan, seconded by Commissioner Hovis. All in favor? We are now back in open session. No action was taken during the closed session. Do I have a, oh, this concludes our work session for tonight. Our next regular meeting here in the Harley B. Gaston Junior Public Forum is Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026, 6 p.m. Thank you for watching. If you have any questions, please comment or any telephone our clerk, Donna S. Buff, at 704-866-3196. Good night. Good night.

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