From OuterBanksVoice.com
During the April 7 Dare County Commissioners meeting, Commissioner Chair Bob Woodard and County Manager Bobby Outten said the tax rate for the next fiscal year will go down by a substantial amount so that the total tax money collected by the county will be “revenue neutral” compared with this year.
That information emerged as Dare County residents recently received their 2025 property revaluation notices. The total value of those properties, according to the county, is about $27.5 billion, which represents a major 67% increase over the $16.4 billion in assessed value in 2024. When the county’s properties were last revalued five years ago in 2020, the tax base was $15.9 billion.
During his opening remarks at the April 7 meeting, Woodard stated that after a budget workshop held on April 4, “I’m pleased to announce that the board [of commissioners] is committed to a revenue neutral rate.” Later, as he explained, the county tax rate will very probably go from 40.05 cents per $100 of value to 26.32 cents per $100 of value—a drop of 35% to get to that revenue neutral collection number.
Later, Outten confirmed that the projected rate of 26.32 cents “will be the rate used…unless something changes that changes the revenue neutral calculation.” The new rate won’t be formalized until the budget is approved in June.
During the public comment segment of the meeting, several residents complained about the large increase in their property value in the revaluation notices, and expressed concern about what it would do to their tax bills.
Outten responded by stating that the “the tax value went up, and it probably went up a lot” in the new assessments. But he added that the tax “rate is going down and it’s going down to a revenue neutral rate,” noting that overall, the county “gets the same amount of money” under the new formula.
And while the aggregate total of county tax collected may remain the same, depending on new property values, some individual tax bills could still increase and some could go down.
