Vivian Wilhoite is a long-standing public servant and most Nashvillians who pay attention to local politics know her as the Assessor of Property, a position she was reelected to earlier this year. She also ran for Mayor in 2023, and was elected to the Metro Council in 2003 and 2007, serving two terms to represent District 29.
She started her professional career as a real estate appraiser at the Tennessee Public Service Commission where she was responsible for the appraisal of public utility properties for ad valorem tax purposes. She worked her way up to Chief of the Consumer Services Division and ended her stint with the state doing consumer education and outreach across Tennessee.
In 2016, she was elected as the first African American to hold the position of the Assessor of Property and the third African American in the State of Tennessee elected to the position of the Assessor of Property. Meanwhile she is serving in her third term, and property owners’ and politicans’ eyes will be on her and her office next year, 2025, when the next property reappraisal is schedule to be conducted.
What is the role of the Davidson County Assessor of Property?
It is our responsibility to determine the value and the classification of all taxable properties in Davidson County. Our mission specifically is, “To accurately identify, list, appraise, and classify all taxable properties to achieve fair and equitable values for the preparation and completion of the annual assessment roll in a timely manner, while continuously educating property owners of the appraisal process and their options to appeal, as well as learn of available assistance programs.”
The last property tax assessment was in 2021, which garnered a lot of attention due to the Metro Council voting to increase the property tax rate in the prior year. When is the next reappraisal and can you explain how the property tax rate in Davidson County is determined?
The reappraisal was last conducted in 2021, and the next reappraisal will be administered in 2025.
In Tennessee, every county has a choice to do a reappraisal every four, five, or six years. Davidson County chose to conduct its reappraisal every four years. We submitted that decision to the State Board of Equalization, our governing body, for their approval.
When a reappraisal occurs, state law says that the county cannot benefit from a windfall of revenue on existing construction because of the reappraisal. In other words, Tennessee has a revenue neutral requirement of the reappraisal process meaning that the county can only collect the same amount of money that it collected on existing construction in the previous year.
Further, to ensure that the reappraisal is revenue neutral, the State of Tennessee, by law, after a reappraisal, establishes a new tax rate. This tax rate is called the Certified Tax Rate. This CTR calculated against the value of existing construction is established to not produce more property tax revenue than the amount generated during the preceding year on existing construction.
After the reappraisal, if the Mayor and/or the Metro Council wants to increase its revenue through the property taxes, the Mayor and/or the Metro Council would then adjust that CTR. Citizens would get the opportunity to voice their opinion on the increase.
Consider what happened in 2017, the year after I was elected as the Assessor of Property. At that time, the Mayor and the Metro Council decided not to increase the CTR. The CTR became the tax rate and was the lowest tax rate in Davidson County’s history – 3.155 per 100 dollar-Urban Service District and 2.755 per 100 dollar-General Service District. The county gets its additional revenue from new construction.
In 2020, the new Mayor and Metro Council at that time passed a tax rate increase, before the reappraisal year of 2021. That was a 34-percent increase in the tax rate, from $3.155 to $4.211 per $100 of a property’s assessed value and came after three years of no tax increase. The reappraisal of 2021 resulted in the CTR reduced to $3.288 and the Mayor and the Metro Council choose not to increase the tax rate above the CTR. Making that tax rate of $3.288 the second lowest tax rate in Davidson County’s history.
If the tax rate increase happened one year prior to the 2021 Reappraisal, does that mean that the Mayor and Metro Council can propose a tax rate change any year?
To my understanding, the Mayor or the Metro Council can propose a tax rate increase at any time. Let me be clear, the Assessor of Property is not involved in proposing a tax rate. That is one of the many misconceptions that our staff must clarify daily. We continue to conduct a huge amount of outreach to educate people on that and on the reappraisal process. Our responsibility is to establish the value on currently more than 282,000 residential and commercial properties combined and approximately 34,000 personal property accounts.
It is the Mayor’s Office or the Metro Council that initiates a property tax increase and votes on it. They can do it any year, but based on history, it is done in connection with a property reappraisal year because the tax rate will likely be adjusted downward to maintain revenue neutrality as I’ve mentioned previously.
A critical part of our mission is to educate property owners about the reappraisal process. We provide the market value to the property owner in the reappraisal year and that value remains the same until the next reappraisal, unless the property is impacted by improvements or damages; thereby changing the property value. The primary ways that property value changes between one reappraisal to another is if you improve your property through a renovation or expansion, which is what a lot of people did during COVID, or if – God forbid – some type of occurrence happens that reduces your property value, your home caught on fire or a tornado or flood damaged it.
Usually, we find out about additions when people take out a permit to add on or renovate their property, and then we conduct visual inspection and reappraise the property value. After a disaster, if the damages are not repaired by a certain time, we, by law, must inspect that property and reduce the value equitably and fairly.
All this boils down to the fact that the reappraisal is just about the value of your property. It is not about setting the property tax rate.
About how many properties are included in the reappraisal, and how much of Metro’s budget is based on the payment of property tax?
In the last reappraisal of 2021, we valued approximately 252,000 parcels. I understand that 52 percent of the Metro budget is currently funded through the payment of property tax. Property taxes are based on two factors in the equation, the tax rate per 100 dollars, and the 25, 30 or 40 percent of the property value depending on whether it’s residential, commercial or personal property. For us, it is very important that we provide a fair and equitable property value based on the laws and procedures under which we are governed by the State of Tennessee.
We are a total staff of 85 plus of skilled and professionally trained appraisers and support staff. Those who are appraisers go out between the reappraisals and visually inspect all properties to keep our records updated. They review and verify market sales, cost, and income data according to accepted practices.
Reappraisal values are based on location, a property’s characteristics, square footage, quality of construction, property use to determine whether it is used as a home, a business, or vacant land, and current market conditions. The market conditions are determined by similar sales in the neighborhood and immediate area during the year prior to the reappraisal year. So, for the 2025 reappraisal, we will use sales from 2024.
What are some of the community priorities you currently work on?
My priority is to implement the mission of our office. To do that, we continue to increase our number of credentialed appraisers and deputy assessors in our office.
One of the priorities that I was proactive in putting into place is outreach and education. This includes making sure that property owners know that they have the right to appeal and to ensure they understand the reappraisal process.
To date we have done more than 250 outreach presentations. We were only stifled in doing those during the height of COVID. But we continue to find creative ways to ensure that property owners are aware that once they get their values, they can appeal. We don’t make it personal. We want to hear from you about your property, about something that we may not know. For instance, about a house fire in your home that reduced the property value and for some reason you were not able to fully repair the inside of your home. We don’t see that from the outside. You may have had a leaking roof. You may have a crack in your foundation that has caused your property to shift in a way that may make it difficult to live in the house. So, we want to hear about those type of things.
We want people to appeal, so that we can get the opportunity to be in front of the owner to share with them how we arrive at the value, and they can share with us information about their property. The property owner knows more about their property than we do.
What led up to this point. What drives you?
It was people, and it was the experience that I had.
I say people because I was approached by a very good friend of mine urging me to run for this office when I was an appraiser for the Tennessee Public Service Commission. At that time I was finishing my first term as a councilmember, and I wanted to run for a second term. And later on a constituent of mine also suggested I should consider running for Assessor of Property.
Helping people was something I was already doing as Metro Council representative. The reason I ran was because I felt I could help inform people about the property reappraisal and their right to appeal. I felt, and still do, that people can be informed in a way that meets them where they are. And those were the things that I wanted to put in place as the Assessor of Property.
Even though tax freeze, tax relief, and tax deferral are the responsibility of the [Office of the Metropolitan] Trustee, I felt it was everybody’s job to tell people about those programs. I am talking about programs that can benefit those who live on a fixed income. When you live in a booming city where [property] values are increasing year over year, but you only see the increase in property values in the reappraisal every four years, that can lead to widespread sticker shock.
I think it’s important for people to understand how the process works and how the appeals process and these tax relief programs can work for them.