Richmond city assessor proposes 6% increase in taxable real estate for Jan. 1, 2026 reassessment
Summary
City Assessor Richard McKeith told council members the office’s forecast for the next reassessment is a 6% year‑over‑year increase in taxable real estate, citing recent market trends, assessment-to-sale ratios and conversations with an economist; council members asked for the raw land‑book numbers behind the calculation.
Richard McKeith, Richmond’s city assessor, told the Richmond City Council at a May budget work session that his office’s forecast for the Jan. 1, 2026 reassessment is a 6% increase in taxable real estate value.
McKeith said the forecast draws on recent assessment history, current assessment-to-sale ratios in higher‑value neighborhoods, and consultations with a newly hired economist who has validated the assessor’s estimate. “This year we’re forecasting six percent land book to land book from last year,” McKeith said, adding that economists’ independent forecasts were “within a half a percent” of his estimate.
The discussion mattered because council members must take the assessor’s numbers into account while finalizing FY26 budget amendments and a proposed tax rate. Council member Kenya Gibson and others said the city should consider recent large variances between budgeted and realized revenues when deciding whether to reduce the tax rate; Gibson cited multi‑year revenue variances in tens of millions of dollars and urged caution. Council President Newbill and others pressed McKeith for follow‑up detail on the baseline amount behind the 6% projection.
McKeith said his 6% figure reflects a downward trend in the pace of increases after two years of double‑digit growth (about 13% in earlier years), then 7.7% and 6.7% in more recent years, and that assessment/sale ratios in some neighborhoods have moved into the high‑eighties and nineties, leaving less room for aggressive increases. “I don’t want to be overly aggressive,” he said, noting national economic uncertainty and that the values are effective Jan. 1, 2026 and must “hold up all the way through December 31.”
Council members requested the assessor provide the raw land‑book total for the base year used to compute the 6% increase, and McKeith agreed to supply that figure to council staff. Several council members said they supported a measured approach and asked staff to track regional assessor benchmarks so Richmond’s forecast could be compared with neighboring localities.
Council members also pressed for more staff coordination so the assessor’s early forecast is paired with revenue and collection details from the city finance office when the council finalizes tax‑rate decisions later in the budget process.
The exchange closed with McKeith saying he would notify council staff promptly if the forecast changed.
