When Guilford County taxpayers line up at an upcoming Thursday, Oct. 2, public hearing for people to comment on or challenge the way the Guilford County Tax Department is determining property values for 2026, many will be surprised to learn that part of the information about how the county’s revaluation process operates can’t be copied, taken home or made public.
The state requires that counties adopt what’s called a “schedule of values, standards and rules” before each countywide property revaluation. That document is the playbook tax department appraisers use to assign new values to every house, lot and commercial building.
By North Carolina law, those schedules have to be placed in the assessor’s office for public inspection and the Board of Commissioners must hold a hearing before adoption. But part of the methodology used in the reval is basically kept secret. It cannot be given out to the public who will be paying the bills and there is only one way to see it…