NOTE: We will post additional information as it becomes available and hopefully make the site easier to navigate.  If you have information that would be useful to other citizens please send to me at samsjl@icloud.com

      Links to useful information:

                 May 3 Open Letter to Commissioners (see below)

                 govinsights.io/chowan   here

                 Kim Ringeisen Facebook Page  here

                 Letter to the Editor, Chowan Herald re Tax Rate/Budget  here           

                Opinion Piece to Albemarle Observer re Tax Rate/Budget here

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Open Email sent to the Chowan County Commissioners May 3, 2026

Subject:  FY 2026-27 Proposed County Budget

Commissioners,

On Monday May 4 the County Manager will present a proposed FY 26-27 budget to you.  Rather than go through a technical discussion (tax rates, ad valorem, revenue neutral, etc) which makes most people’s eyes glaze over, we request you focus on ONE SINGLE THING …how much COUNTY SPENDING has increased over the last few years, and what you will do to address this.  According to the Albemarle Observer the proposed 2026-27 budget is $30.6 million.

Please see below the table tha created from local news sources and county documents, showing spending versus population.

The proposed budget is a 19.5% increase over last year’s and a 48% increase since 2022, the last revaluation.

The same number of taxpayers are paying $5 million more than last year and the county is spending almost double what it spent just 6 years ago even though population growth is stagnant.

Please focus on reducing General Fund spending. We wrote to you previously (now posted at: robinsams.com/tax rate.htm) our experience with a $150,000 house in town which has had major tax increases over the past 4 years.  The county budget should not grow faster than people’s ability to pay.  Increases in tax value should be driven by improvements made by a homeowner or sales data specific to his house, otherwise people are paying taxes on property the county says is more valuable even though it has no added value to homeowners, even if they have lived there for decades.  If they live in town they get to pay for this new valuation twice.  A homeowner's only hope is that increased numbers of new properties will increase the tax base enough to lower their share of the burden. One such addition to the base is Timber Mill.

Timber Mill Property Taxes.  One issue we request you ask the county manager to address at the meeting and publish publicly in your 2026 tax ordinance involves property taxes paid by Timber Mill.  How much of the recent tax valuation (said to be $3.02 billion in the Albemarle Observer, but not contained on any county web page we can locate) is being assessed to Timber Mill?  How much are they actually paying?

News sources indicate that Timbermill will pay only 25% of their assessed value for 7 years.  One press release

showed   them presenting a check to the county last November for almost $750,000. Using last year's budget that amount would have reduced the tax rate by almost 4 cents!  How much of their future payments (touted to eventually be over $50 million) will be allocated to reducing the tax rate in FY26-27 for average folks?  You should publish a written policy that specifies what percent of their tax payments will go toward financing the General Budget in future years; my suggestion is below. 

Our Recommendations:

1) Set the Tax Rate so county spending in the General Budget for FY 26-27 is the same figure as  in FY 25-26--ie. each taxpayer pays the same as this year, and apply the Timber Mill expected payments toward any line item in the budget that exceeds inflation.

2) Continue item 1)  in the future to restrict spending to FY26-27 budget-plus-inflation, applying Timber Mill tax revenues each year so that average property owners benefit from Timber Mill tax payments immediately, until at some future date when big bucks from Timber Mill are realized, spending can increase greater than the rate of inflation.

3) If you have a better formula to restrict spending increases after your budget work sessions, publish it in local news sources.

JOHN and ROBIN SAMS