Yesterday afternoon I had an opportunity to tour Jamestown’s Pinecroft-Sedgefield Fire Department (PSFD) Station 46 with Chief Derek Carson and Jamestown town council candidate Cliff Paddock. As expected, the vehicles, equipment and firehouse looked great – beautifully maintained with everything in its place.
I was as impressed as when I had my first interaction with PSFD – back in January 2022 during a family medical emergency. Not a day has passed that I haven’t been grateful for the response, professionalism and patience shown by our firefighters and EMS team that night. Having Station 46 and its heroes so close by gives me peace of mind, and it’s one of our town’s greatest assets.
Chief Carson showed us the bunk room (which sleeps 3), bathroom (only one toilet), office, kitchen/common area, and a small wash room where “decontamination” of uniforms takes place (the same sink, washer and dryer used to wash clothes and bed linens).
During the tour, it became obvious that Station 46, though well maintained, is in need of some 21st Century upgrades. And, according to Carson, it has started planning for an expansion – about 9,500 additional square feet to house future equipment, vehicles and personnel needs.
The Town of Jamestown owns the Station 46 property and rents it to PSFD for $1 a year. Everything else is funded with sales taxes, motor vehicle taxes, and a fire tax that’s assessed at the rate of .1672% of a property’s tax valuation.
Here’s how the fire tax gets collected
Residents who live in Jamestown’s ETJ (extraterritorial jurisdiction) and the PSFD rural areas are billed for the fire tax via a separate line item on their annual County property tax bills:
For Town of Jamestown residents, the fire tax is included in the Jamestown property tax, and then sent to PSFD (by the Guilford County tax department) at the current rate (.1672%). For the account shown on the bill below, $515.31 of the Jamestown property tax will go to the Pinecroft-Sedgefield Fire Department:
Guilford County’s costly miscalculation
As reported in The Jamestown News/YES Weekly, a recent miscalculation by the Guilford County tax department left the Pinecroft-Sedgefield Fire District with a three-year accumulated revenue loss of $1,096,968. The shortfall is said to have originated from incorrect revenue estimates based on a faulty motor vehicle tax revenue calculation. As a result, PSFD was underfunded by $183,079 in fiscal year 2024, by $261,184 in fiscal year 2025, and will be underfunded by $652,705 in 2026 (according to its recently adopted budget).
Details surrounding the County’s miscalculation – which amounts to a total $2.3 million shortfall for all of Guilford County’s fire departments – are unclear, but it’s partly to blame for the .03% increase we will see on next year’s tax bill.
Also unclear is why Jamestown’s property tax valuations are all over the place, especially with respect to the inconsistency in residential land valuations, and the wide disparities between residential vs industrial valuations.
Those “inconsistencies” prompted me to take a closer look, so I plugged some randomly-selected properties in Jamestown’s Yorkshire, Forestdale and Cedarwood neighborhoods into a spreadsheet. The results are even more confusing.
Funding consistency requires valuation consistency
Over a period of 20 years (2006 to 2025), residential property tax valuations INCREASED by 29.5% in Yorkshire, by 39.5% in Forestdale East, by 47% in Forestdale North, and by 41.3% in Cedarwood. [source: Guilford County GIS Data Viewer].
Over that same 20-year period, property tax valuations DECREASED by an average of -12.16% for 89.48 acres of industrial and residential properties in the center of town – in the block bordered by Main Street, Dillon Rd., Oakdale Rd. and McClure Rd/Deep River:
Some of this is due to the fact that the lots in Jamestown’s named neighborhoods are valued using a flat lot or “per unit” price, while larger residential lots (two or more acres) are valued using a lower “per acre” price.
In Yorkshire, for example, all land lots are valued at a “per unit” price of $35,000, regardless of size.
The tax value of my .53 acre Yorkshire lot is valued by Guilford County at $35,000, but so is my neighbor’s 1.12-acre lot. According to this method, my lot is worth $66,000 an acre, while his is worth $31,000 an acre.
For the Town of Jamestown’s larger residential landowners (2 or more acres), the valuations range from $6,500 to $9,500 per acre, prorated. A 5.3-acre lot with the $6,500 per-acre rate is valued by County tax assessors at $34,450, which is less than the $35,000 valuation of my half-acre lot.
It’s pretty clear in Guilford County’s “Schedule of Values” Manual that the valuation methods the County assessors used here in Jamestown are wrong:
(1) The 2+ acre Jamestown lots are being valued as “Rural acreage land,” which the Manual defines as “land that is outside most city limits, over 2 acres in size, was historically used in farming/agricultural processes, and is valued by the acre.”
Problem is, these 2+ acre lots are within town limits and are zoned “single family residential” (not farming or agriculture).
(2) The “per unit” valuations used in Yorkshire and Forestdale are used for “Rural lots,” which the Manual defines as “parcels of property that are outside most city limits and are not in a named subdivision. These lots are usually less than 2 acres in size. Rural lots are priced on a per lot basis. Appraisers determine the base lot price range for the neighborhood.”
Problem here is, both Yorkshire and Forestdale are within town limits and have always been named subdivisions, so they fall under the County’s “Neighborhood and Subdivision lots” category, defined as “a neighborhood or a named subdivision where the surrounding properties are similar in value and in use. Appraisers valuing the neighborhood use sales of lots in the neighborhood to determine a base land value. In neighborhoods where a subdivision is fully developed and there are no sales, the appraiser may use the allocation method to value the land. The main factors that influence the base value of neighborhood and subdivision land are topography, shape, accessibility and size.”
(3) The Manual also says that “Industrial land” parcels “tend to have a higher value than all other types of properties.” That’s definitely not the case with my Jamestown property sample: The Kres LLC/Teknor Apex property (15.43 acres) has a land valuation of $17,500 per acre, and Univar (6.08 acres) has a land valuation of $31,496 per acre.
The Manual includes a list of size adjustments and other factor adjustments (topography, flood plain, railroad), but they’re not being applied equally or consistently in Jamestown.
Summary
Pinecroft-Sedgefield Fire Department and Station 46 provide equal, consistent protection for our properties, 24/7, no matter the size. Station 46 should have the renovation, equipment and personnel it needs to protect the citizens of Jamestown and surrounding communities.
BUT, the tax valuations that fund this vital service need to be calculated and applied equally and consistently. The next countywide property tax revaluation will take place early next year. Make sure you know how your land and house are being valued, and how it compares to your neighborhood, town and county.
Additional Tax Information
Check out property valuations and histories for your property and those of your neighborhood, town and local industrial facilities at the Guilford County Tax Property site, HERE. It is best to do this on a laptop because the tax information links don’t appear on the mobile version of the site. Type an address or name in the search bar, hit enter, then tap on “TAX BILLS.” There is also a link to tax appraisal information where you can click on the LAND tab to see land valuation information.
In 2022, Guilford County assessors performed a county-wide revaluation of property for property tax assessments. North Carolina’s General Assembly requires these revaluations every EIGHT years, but Guilford County conducts them every FIVE years. The revaluation prior to 2022 happened in 2017, and before that in 2012. The next revaluation is scheduled for 2026, which means that Guilford County has shortened its revaluation schedule to FOUR years.
Go HERE to read about the $100,000+ tax dollars Jamestown would have lost if not for the attentive eye of a Jamestown resident. Errors in the tax bill for Windsor Homes’ 32-acre development on Harvey Road are discussed at the bottom of this post.