Lincoln County property owners have a few more days to checkproperty values before they are finalized and used for budgetpreparation later this year.

“The property rolls are open during the month of July for thepublic to view,” said Lincoln County Tax Assessor-Collector NancyJordan.

The rolls are open for viewing in the board of supervisors roomat the government complex. Jordan said the real and personalproperty rolls were presented to the board on July 7.

For anyone who objects to the values placed on their property,hearings are set for the first week in August before the board ofsupervisors.

Jordan said objectors may contact her office regarding theassigned values. Typically, she said, there are few objections, andthey are usually the same property owners every year.

Once the property rolls are finalized in August, Jordan said thechancery clerk’s office will run the final roll and present it tothe state for approval.

The rolls show the real and assessed values of property.

Real value is the market value of property while assessed valueis used in property tax calculations. Assessed values are used inconjunction with millage rates, which are set by supervisors andaldermen, in determining how much in property taxes people pay.

“The assessed value is what is used in figuring the budget,”Jordan said.

According to the rolls, the county has 22,606 real parcels witha total assessed value of $112.63 million. Personal businessproperty is valued at $29.02 million. Jordan said there are 1,376parcels of personal property.

“The only increase we had to the real roll was the addition ofnew houses,” Jordan said. “There’s not a lot of increase.”

The real property roll goes up on average about $2 million fromnew property each year, Jordan said.

Jordan said this year was not an update year, meaning there wasnot a county-wide reappraisal of values. She said the nextcounty-wide appraisal will be in 2005, and the new values assignedthen will be reflected in property taxes that will be due in2006.

There are five classes of property: real, personal, mobilehomes, utilities and automobiles. The combined assessed value ofthose five classes is approximately $200 million, Jordan said.

An interesting note about automobiles, Jordan mentioned, is that32,810 car tags were sold in the county between June 1, 2002 andMay 31, 2003. The total assessed value of the automobiles was $49.3million.

“The Mississippi Tax Commission places the values on theautomobiles,” Jordan said.