Low-income senior homeowner hopes city will consider joining tax relief program

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Retired nurse Carleen Claybaker isn’t too happy that even though Johnson City isn’t raising the property tax rate, her city property taxes are going up by 15% while a bank, a store at the mall and an apartment complex’s will all decrease.

“I am barely making it on what I’m receiving in Social Security … and I live very frugally,” Claybaker said in her modest home as her African grey parrot, Henry, chattered in the background. Claybaker gave up her car to save those related expenses, but said with her county taxes increasing even more after a 30-cent hike — about 34% — the savings from cost-cutting are “gone in the wash,” she said.

“I’m going to have more difficulty meeting these expectations of taxes than I thought I was, say, at the beginning of the year.”

Claybaker is hoping city leaders will consider partly or fully matching the State of Tennessee’s property tax relief program for low-income elderly and disabled homeowners. Washington County fully matches the program, while Johnson City currently does not participate. As a result, she got a $216 break on her Washington County property taxes last year ($108 from the state and a match from the county), while her city taxes included just the state match of $100.

Learn more about the Tennessee Property Tax Relief Program Here.

“I have no problem paying taxes,” Claybaker said. “I understand that governments have to have revenue in order to provide the services for us.”

How do you get higher taxes without a rate increase?

Johnson City commissioners held rates at a rate that keeps city revenue the same after last year’s countywide reappraisal, but Claybaker’s taxes are going up because average home values grew much more than average commercial values. The average home was appraised at 68% higher than its 2019 value, while the average commercial property saw just a 27% appreciation.

When the state re-sets the tax rate it lumps all properties together to reach a rate that equalizes how much the city and county will collect next year to last year’s amount.

As a result, the average commercial property is seeing its city tax amount drop by 13%, while the average home’s amount will increase by 15%.

For example, Bank of Tennessee headquarters were appraised at a value 20% higher than the 2019 reappraisal, which is well below the overall average appreciation of 54%. As a result, the company will pay about $90,147 in property tax on the building next year — 18% less than the $110,306 it paid this year.

News Channel 11 reviewed 11 commercial properties across a variety of sectors — a supermarket, two apartment complexes, restaurants, a department store — and their total combined 2023 property tax was $654,278. After a combined 32% appreciation in value, which is well below the overall county average but slightly above the commercial average, their 2024 combined bill will be $591,966, which is a decrease of 10%. The highest drop was 45% for a McDonald’s in south Johnson City.

Claybaker, meanwhile, saw her home’s value appraised at $179,100, up 68% from the 2019 appraisal of $106,300. Her city tax was $526 last year. It’ll be $606 this year. Throw in Washington County’s first tax rate increase in nine years, passed Thursday night, and her combined property taxes, $1,097 last year, will be $1,372 this year before any relief programs kick in.

Even though the commercial versus residential gap is a matter of macroeconomics and trends in value and not the result of some grand conspiracy, Claybaker still finds it a bitter pill to swallow.

“People who are making really decent profits, why are they not paying more taxes? I’m very disturbed by what feels to me to be that those who are better off get more breaks.”

Claybaker gave up using a car to save money and said she feels like more financial burdens are “being placed on those that are least able to shoulder that burden.”

Another $275 in property taxes isn’t a small thing to Claybaker.

“I’m a little bit frightened that my situation means so little,” she said.

The tax relief lever

News Channel 11 asked Johnson City if it had considered matching the state program at any level. The city provided a statement that while such a program wasn’t provided in the fiscal 2025 budget that begins July 1, “staff has worked diligently to build a budget that carefully considers the priorities of our residents and responsible stewardship of their tax dollars.”

The statement noted that the city has raised its tax rate just three times in the past 22 years and that the rate “remains very low, especially when considering the high level of service provided to all.

“We are grateful the state provides this relief and that Washington County has budgeted additional monies that will assist some of the Johnson Citians who need it most.”

News Channel 11 reached out to several other local governments and learned Johnson City isn’t out of the ordinary. Neither Elizabethton nor Kingsport offer any match to the state amounts, which vary annually and according to jurisdiction and are set by the state. Hawkins County also doesn’t provide any match.

Bristol matches 25% of the state amount on city property taxes while Greeneville matches 30%. Greene County, like Washington County, provides a 100% match. That match cost Washington County close to $500,000 in foregone revenue last year.

‘Definitely worth looking into’

Johnson City vice mayor Aaron Murphy told News Channel 11 he’s open to investigating the possibility so that people like Claybaker could potentially get more relief. He said he did some personal research into the program after it was brought to his attention.

“I thought it was definitely worth looking into to see if it was a possibility now or something that could be done in the future,” Murphy said.

“As one local representative, I can’t make the decision for the city to implement that, but we can encourage and direct staff to entertain it to see if it’s a possibility.”

The CEO of Good Samaritan Ministries, Murphy said he sees firsthand the struggles people like Claybaker face.

“We do receive a substantial amount of calls from seniors and veterans and those who are elderly needing assistance,” Murphy said.

He said city leaders have to focus on making sure there’s adequate revenue for schools, roads, public safety and infrastructure, saying “those are the essentials.”

But Murphy acknowledged the challenges of inflation are compounded by the anomalies of this latest reappraisal. The 68% to 27% gap between residential and commercial isn’t normal.

In the 2019 reappraisal, the city’s overall residential property value was up 10.2%, and commercial was up 11.1%. The 2014 reappraisal had a 3.3% decrease in residential value from 2009, with commercial up 2.0%. Neither year had enough of a difference to swing commercial or residential to any appreciable degree.

“Any time we can help our neighbors in need, whatever their need may be, whatever their essentials may be, it’s important that we at least entertain it, look into it, do our research to see the possibilities in making it happen,” he said.

For her part, Claybaker said she’s concerned not just about seniors and disabled homeowners who qualify — the maximum family income for the 2023 tax year was $33,460 — but about low and moderate-income working families.

“Is there some way to look at the situation so that the burden that is unreasonably placed on those of us in that circumstance would be taken more into consideration … to look at how to have a reasonable expectation on who shoulders most of this burden.”

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