New Hanover County Commissioners discuss proposed new tax rate during budget session

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Discussions about a decrease  in New Hanover County’s property tax rate continued Thursday during the commissioner’s budget workshop session.

Recently, new property evaluations were mailed to county residents.

The current tax rate is 45 cents per $100 valuation.

So a home valued at $300,000 would cost $1,350 in property taxes annually.

There is a proposal to drop the tax rate to 35.5 cents.

Commissioner Dane Scalise would prefer the tax rate be closer to 30 cents.

Vice-chair LeAnn Pierce said she’d like the county to be as close to revenue neutral as possible, but a drop of just one cent would lead the county to lose millions of dollars, which they’d have to find elsewhere.

“I personally am somewhere in the low 30s, if we can not get to 29 cents,” Pierce said. “So we talked about that today, for every cent that we want to reduce it from that proposal is 8 million dollars we have to find. We either have to increase revenue or cut expenses by 8 million dollars for one cent.”

Due to the average home valuation increase the county saw, homeowners would pay an additional $40 in taxes per month, if county commissioners approve the proposed 35.5 cent rate.

A tax rate will be approved by the end of June.