NEW ORLEANS - Ben Maygarden is only half-joking when he wonders whether he should wear a bulletproof vest to City Hall, where he works for one of the city's seven tax assessors.
New Orleans is wrapping up a mandatory, citywide reassessment of property values for the first time since Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
The reassessment could lead to big property tax increases for some homeowners at a time when many already are being hit with soaring insurance premiums in Katrina's aftermath.
"People are going to be upset," said Maygarden, chief deputy to Assessor Nancy Marshall. "We joke about needing bulletproof vests, but it's not entirely a joke."
A 4,480-square-foot home in a well-to-do part of Uptown recently sold for $965,000 even though its assessed value has been $409,000 since 1999. The home's former owners were paying about $6,000 in annual property taxes.
The City Council, school board and other government entities that collect property taxes could ease the blow by lowering the tax rates. But that is an iffy proposition in a city that has teetered on the brink of bankruptcy since Katrina.
Because of the damage wrought by the storm and the exodus of close to half the city's 450,000 residents, property tax revenue was projected to fall from $80.1 million in 2004 to $68.2 million this fiscal year.
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