Senate Bill No. 656
(By Senators Rowe and Sprouse)
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[Introduced March 26, 2001; referred to the Committee on
Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section four, article one-c, chapter
eleven of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred
thirty-one, as amended, relating to authorizing county
commissions to disallow a valuation of real property to
increase by more than ten percent in a year unless good cause
is shown of a compelling nature to allow such an increase.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section four, article one-c, chapter eleven of the code
of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1C. FAIR AND EQUITABLE PROPERTY VALUATION.
§11-1C-4. Commission powers and duties; rule making.
(a) On or before the first day of October, one thousand nine hundred ninety, and thereafter as necessary the property valuation
training and procedures commission shall perform the following
duties:
(1) Devise training and certification criteria for county
assessors and their employees and members of county commissions,
which shall include a definition of "appropriate staff member" as
the term is used in section six of this article relating to
required training, which definition shall include deputy assessors
as provided for in section three, article two of this chapter;
(2) Establish uniform, statewide procedures and methodologies
for the mapping, visitation, identification and collection of
information on the different species of property, which procedures
and methodologies shall include reasonable requirements for
visitation of property, including a requirement that a good faith
effort be made to contact any owner of owner-occupied residential
property: Provided, That the commission is not authorized to
establish the methods to value real and personal property, but
shall have the authority to approve such the methods;
(3) Develop an outline of items to be included in the county
property valuation plan required in section seven of this article,
which shall include information to assist the property valuation training and procedures commission in its determination of the
distribution of state funds provided pursuant to section eight of
this article.
(b) On or before the first day of July, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-one, the commission shall establish objective
criteria for the evaluation of the performance of the duties of
county assessors and the tax commissioner.
(c) In the event the tax commissioner and a county assessor
cannot agree on the content of the plan required under section
seven of this article, the commission shall examine the plan and
the objections of the tax commissioner and shall resolve the
dispute on or before the first day of the fiscal year following the
fiscal year in which the plan was submitted to the commission for
resolution.
(d) The commission shall have the power to make such rules as
it deems considers
necessary to carry out the provisions of this
section, which rules shall include procedures for the maintenance,
use, sale and reproduction of microfilm, photography and tax maps.
Any rules adopted by the commission prior to the first day of
October, one thousand nine hundred ninety, under subsection (a) of
this section are exempt from the provisions of article three of chapter twenty-nine-a of this code: Provided,
That the commission
shall file a copy of any rule so exempted from the provisions of
chapter twenty-nine-a of this code with the legislative rule-making
review committee created pursuant to section eleven, article three
of said chapter prior to the thirtieth day of November, one
thousand nine hundred ninety.
(e) The commission shall have the authority to make and enter
into all contracts and agreements necessary or incidental to the
performance of its duties and the execution of its powers under
this article.
(f) In order to fund the costs of the requirements of this
article, the valuation commission shall have the authority, on a
one-time basis, to borrow five million dollars and to distribute
such the
funds according to need and the valuation plan submitted
by the counties. Upon request of the valuation commission, the
state board of investments shall loan, under commercially
reasonable terms to be determined by the parties, up to five
million dollars to the valuation commission, on a one-time basis,
from one of the various funds administered by the state board of
investments.
(g) The commission shall be required, in the event that the tax commissioner has failed to do so, to appoint one or more
special assessors if it is the determination of the commission that
an assessor has substantially failed to perform the duties required
by sections seven and eight of this article. A writ of mandamus
shall be the proper remedy if the commission fails to perform any
of its duties required by law.
(h) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the
commission is authorized to prohibit any reevaluation of real
property that exceeds ten percent of the assessed value of the
property as it existed in the previous year.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to authorize county
commissions to prohibit reevalutions of real property that exceed
ten percent of the assessed value of the property that existed in
the previous year.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.
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