A public hearing on Surry County’s proposed 2025-26 tax rates originally scheduled for April 3 has been moved to April 10.

A notice county government posted to its Facebook page on April 3 lists a proposed real estate tax rate of 71 cents per $100 in assessed value. It’s the same as the current rate and tied with Southampton County for the lowest in Hampton Roads but is advertised as an “effective tax rate increase.”

That’s because Surry recently completed a reassessment of real estate values that may cause some homeowners to see an increase in their tax bills.

County supervisors voted in September to approve a contract with Roanoke-based Wingate Appraisal Services for what supervisors termed a “limited scope reassessment” that looks solely at recent sales, rather than sending an appraiser to each house. The goal is to determine which types of real estate are selling at higher-than-assessed prices and adjust those homes’ real estate tax assessments accordingly.

According to the budget for the current fiscal year, real estate taxes generate approximately $8.5 million in county revenue. According to the April 3 notice, a rate of 65 cents per $100 would yield roughly the same revenue under the 2024 reassessed home values as 71 cents did under the valuations in place prior to the reassessment. This is known as the “equalized tax rate.”

It’s a change from the 68-cent equalized rate advertised in the March 19 and March 26 editions of the Sussex-Surry Dispatch when the hearing was initially scheduled for April 3.

Keeping the 71-cent rate would amount to an “effective tax rate increase” of 6 cents per $100, or 9.2%, the April 3 notice states. That too is a change from the 3-cent, or 4.2%, increase advertised in the Dispatch. Individual property owners may see their bills increase more or less than that percentage.

Based on the proposed real estate tax rate and changes in other revenues, the total budget for Surry County is projected to exceed last year’s by 9%, up from 5% in the prior notice.

“This is subject to change as revenues and expenditures are finalized,” the notice states.

The 2024-25 budget across all county funds totals $69.5 million. County Administrator Melissa Rollins has not released her proposed 2025-26 budget.

The county’s personal property or car tax rate is advertised to stay at $4 per $100 with a 31% rebate for qualifying vehicles, also the same as the current year. The county receives money from the state annually to provide its residents with car tax relief.

The proposed $3 per $100 personal property tax on passenger buses and $1 per $100 machinery and tools tax rate are also unchanged from the current year.

All tax rates except real estate are unchanged from the prior notice.

 

Impacts of the reassessment

Prior to the 2025 values taking effect, the last real estate reassessment was completed two years ago. Surry, due to the presence of Dominion Energy’s nuclear power plant, is among a handful of localities that see a large percentage of their budgets come from public service corporation taxes.

Commissioner of the Revenue Jonathan Judkins told supervisors in August that when Wingate last performed a limited scope reassessment for Surry in 2023, tax assessments were within 97% of sale prices. By July, that percentage had fallen to 88%, meaning sale prices are roughly nine percentage points higher than last year.

The sales ratio has a direct impact on the amount of tax revenue the county receives not only from real estate owners but also public service corporations.

Certain types of real estate such as Dominion Energy’s Surry nuclear power plant pay public service corporation taxes that are calculated by the state based on a locality’s sales ratio. 

Under a 100% sales ratio, Surry would have taken in $15.8 million in public service corporation taxes this year, according to the current budget. An 88% sales ratio would equate to $13.9 million, or $1.8 million less. Public service corporation taxes account for 53% of the county’s total annual tax revenue, according to the county’s 2024-25 budget.

Don Thomas, chief operating officer for Wingate, told supervisors on April 3 that the 2025 reassessment restored Surry’s ratio to 100%.

Approximately 4,600, or 70%, of Surry’s roughly 6,500 parcels saw a change in valuation. Of those, 111 homeowners, or 2.4%, appealed the new valuation in February and March, and of those, 62, or 56%, were successful in having their assessments revised.

Thomas said smaller, lower-priced homes saw the most change.

“That’s where the movement in the market is,” Thomas said.

A 912-square-foot ranch house built in 1970 on one acre in the town of Surry, he said, sold in November for $200,000. It had previously sold in January 2022 for $145,000 and was assessed in 2024 at $135,500 but saw a 50% increase to $203,600 as a result of the November sale and 2025 reassessment.

Another 2,252-square-foot modular home on 36 acres in Spring Grove sold last April for $354,000, up 72% from its $205,000 sale price in 2020. As a result, its 2024-assessed $272,800 valuation jumped 28% to $350,100.

A third house, this one a Cape Cod-style 1,954-square-foot residence built in 2005 just north of Surry on 2.7 acres, sold in July for $430,000, up 31% from its 2019 sale price of $328,000. As a result, its assessment increased 2% from $414,800 in 2024 to $423,100 in 2025.

The total tax-assessed valuation of all 6,500 parcels amounted to a collective $1.26 billion in 2024. The 2025 valuations total $1.4 billion, or 12% more.

The adjacent Spring Grove Solar LLC and Colonial Trail West solar farms, the $1,750-acre Cavalier solar farm that spans the Isle of Wight-Surry county line and Align RNG’s new biogas processing hub, a joint venture of Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods that converts methane from hog manure to pipeline-quality natural gas, collectively contributed millions to that overall increase, Thomas said.