Delay in tax abatement paperwork cause adjustments in budgets

The Cape Girardeau County Assessor’s Office will have to adjust numbers after a significant delay in paperwork involving the Cape Dogwood Community Improvement District tax abatements, officials said at Monday’s county commission meeting.

The numbers will be adjusted even though the 2019 budgets had been set, said Tony Smee, the head appraiser in the assessor’s office.

Smee said the tax abatement agreement was signed by developer Andy Patel on June 20, but didn’t arrive at the assessor’s office until December.

For the assessor’s office to make changes to land valuations or to respond to changes for exemption, a request must be made, Smee said.

“For this to be done properly, it needed to be [requested] before the board of equalization closed,” Smee said.

All tax-receiving entities, including the school district and the library, were given the value of all assessments at the end of July, so they could base their budgets accordingly, Smee said.

Smee said the property tax bill for the Dogwood CID would have been about $70,000, but under this agreement, would be approximately $36,000.

“The corrections are not hard to make. We just needed this document to tell us what to do,” Smee said of the agreement.

The agreement, Smee said, contains a clause that will freeze the valuation of the property at about $606,000 — the 2017 valuation — and will keep it frozen for 10 years.

“If tax levies change, taxes on that value change,” Smee said.

Cape Girardeau deputy city manager Molly Mehner said the delay from June to December was because of required documentation — including insurance certificates and proof of participation in E-Verify — not being provided initially.

Once that documentation was received, the agreement and supporting documents were forwarded to the county, Mehner said.

“There was no issue with the CID itself; we simply needed to ensure all the required documentation was in hand,” Mehner said.

The property’s value will be set for 10 years at about $606,000, Smee said, as long as the agreement is in place.

In March, the Cape Girardeau City Council authorized creation of the tax-levying Cape Dogwood Community Improvement District, and approved the property tax abatement for the 10-acre site in Town Plaza, southwest of the intersection of Independence Street and Sheridan Drive.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630