Homeowners around Dallas County were recently greeted with the news that their assessments would be increasing, some substantially, and it didn’t sit well with many.

However, as Dallas County Assessor Steve Helm explains, there were good reasons for the increase, and it could have been much worse. Odd years are considered equalization years for county assessors, which means the state reviews the assessments to make sure they are accurate.

“The way they do that is they review all the sales, and compare the sale price to assessed values. Dallas County was running about 91.7%, so we were low. So therefore for us not to get an equalization order, which would have been around an 8% increase across the board, what my job is is to review areas and see what areas need to be revalued based on the sales that we’re getting and then make the changes according to that. In the end, the county increase was about 5.8%.”

Helm adds, some areas like Perry and Adel may have experienced a greater jump due to their assessments not being adjusted for five years, while others had been done more recently. He says that’s because the Assessors Department doesn’t have the resources, time, or manpower to assess the more than 30,000 homes in the County every two years.

If people believe their properties have not been assessed correctly, they have until Monday to take their case up with the Dallas County Board of Review. To date, the Board has formally reviewed around 220 cases. To learn more about the assessment increase, listen to today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.