Widespread concerns over King George County’s recent reassessment made their way to the March 17 Board of Supervisors meeting, where residents and board members raised questions about accuracy, methodology, and the potential financial impact on taxpayers.

Several residents spoke during public comment, offering examples of issues that they and their neighbors were facing.

An Oakwood Estates resident who owns a rambler told the Board, “I don’t know what your assessors were thinking of when they started assessing our homes. I paid $635,000 for my home three years ago. They’ve assessed it for $853,900. Now, if you guys would like to buy it for that price, I would be glad to sell it, but I can’t sell it for $853,900. My appraisal from my real estate agent was $705,000. So you guys have got me about a quarter of a million dollars more…” He added that other homeowners in the neighborhood with similar homes were seeing comparable increases while larger homes didn’t increase as much. “It’s quite ridiculous.”

Another resident, Debbie Fairfax, said she was encouraged by senior citizens in her neighborhood to review her assessment. She discovered her farmland value had increased by 60%, while some of her neighbors saw increases as high as 127%.

She questioned whether recent industrial land purchases near her property may have influenced assessments and whether AI programs could be driving valuations without accounting for property-specific nuances. Dr. Henry Webb pointed to what he described as clear errors in property records.

“We built our house in 2000. And I think I have discovered a gravitational anomaly over in Blackburn Run because my neighbors and I have basements in our houses that are larger than our house and they haven’t collapsed. And that’s from documentation from the assessment,” he said. Adding, “My assessment went from $475,000 to $640,000.”

Board Chairman David Sullins emphasized that the reassessment process is handled independently of the Board. “I don’t mean that to be a passing of the buck,” he said.

He explained the Commissioner of the Revenue hires a firm to do the work with no direct involvement from the Board. When the supervisors receive the figures, “we look at it from the perspective of we’ve got the needs-based budgets from the departments all across the county.” The county administrator works to determine what’s really needed in terms of funding, and then the Board looks at the potential for revenue based on the assessments—after all the appeals.

“Then we look to decide, do we need to raise taxes? Do we take the assessments at face value?” said Sullins.

Vision Government Solutions, the firm that did the work, recently came before the Board and outlined their process, Sullins noted.

“So there is a structure to it. It’s way different than it was a few years ago with the previous one. They’re actually getting out there, getting on property, and walking around and seeing stuff clearly.”

Sullins and Supervisor Bryan Metts both encouraged residents to work through the process to correct errors. Metts said he found an error in his property’s basement calculation but dismissed it as a minor issue. He acknowledged others have gross errors.

He stressed the importance of correcting records, saying it “gives us a better opportunity to set an appropriate tax rate as we work through, with administration, the CIP plan and the budget.”

However, he emphasized that “nobody has set a tax rate yet” and described the reassessment as “a valuation exercise.”

Other members of the Board, however, signaled interest in a more proactive response.

Supervisor Cathy Binder said her assessment included a bumpout she didn’t know she had. She said many of the complaints she received were from residents in Oakwood Estates, and a trend stood out to her—smaller homes being assessed between $700,000 and $900,000—figures she described as “a little large” for the community.

Binder also raised concerns about farmland valuations, particularly near recent industrial land purchases.

“I still remember the folks in Northern Virginia who told me that is the one problem with data centers: they make the price of the land rise enough that the farmers have to sell out because they can’t afford the taxes. And I don’t want that to happen to King George because the assessments are wrong and jack up the land so our younger, older, whoever wants to keep their land in their farmland can’t afford to do it because the big companies can pay a lot more for their land than they can.”

“I want to make sure that whatever we can do, that we find out why those assessments are wild,” said Binder.

Supervisor Ken Stroud said, “The assessment was something I ran on because it was pretty jacked up, the last one, and this one appears to be the same.”

He added that constituent feedback has highlighted inconsistencies, and he’s glad they’re reaching out to make them known.

“There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason to some of the assessments, and I’m not happy with the assessments the way they are. I can’t say that I support accepting the assessments the way they are. So I [think] something needs to be done, [something] that we need to address as a board regarding that.”

Supervisor Davis also pointed to dramatic increases reported by residents, including one elderly couple whose property value rose 185% and another case involving a small parcel that you can’t even put a house on that was appraised at $6,000 but jumped to $60,000.

“It just kind of seems like the government doesn’t want people to own a lot of land, is what I drive it to,” said Davis. “When you own a lot of land, you’ve got a pond, and you’ve got your own well, and you’re self-sufficient, they don’t like that kind of stuff.”

“The mindset of big government appears to be to tax people enough that they have to sell and chop their property to force the little man to go.”

“I ran against those things from day one. I didn’t run on anything but not raising taxes. And I’m going to stand by what I ran on,” said Davis.

“My suggestion to this Board is we reject the assessment that they put out recently and we stick to exactly what we have.”