Smithfield homeowners can expect to pay more in real estate taxes than they did last year when the town’s bills are mailed in April.
Eight months after voting to set Smithfield’s 2024 real estate rate at 14 cents per $100 in assessed value, the Town Council revoted 5-2 on Feb. 6 to instead set a 16-cent rate for the current year.
The council had adopted the 14-cent rate to offset an average 34% rise in single-family home valuations during Isle of Wight County’s 2023 reassessment. The council’s stated goal, at the time, was to remain “revenue neutral,” or to take in roughly the same dollar amount the prior year’s 19-cent rate had produced under the county’s 2019-assessed property values. State law requires counties reassess real estate values every four years.
Under the new 16-cent rate, the revenue-neutral scenario is no longer the case. According to a public notice the town placed in The Smithfield Times’ Jan. 3 edition, a 14.8-cent tax rate would be needed to fully offset the impact of the 2023 reassessment. The notice refers to the 2.2-cent, or 8.1%, difference from the revenue neutral rate as the “effective tax rate increase” homeowners will pay.