Evaluation of the Reappraisal and Tax Assessment Process in Orange County, NC

Location:	North Carolina
Posted:	Dec 19, 2025
Due:	Jan 23, 2026
Agency:	State Government of North Carolina
Type of Government:	State & Local
Category:	R - Professional, Administrative and Management Support Services
Solicitation No:	367-OC5469
Publication URL:	To access bid details, please log in.

Solicitation Number:	367-OC5469
Project Title:	Evaluation of the Reappraisal and Tax Assessment Process in Orange County, NC
Description:	Orange County, North Carolina is seeking proposals from qualified consultants to work with the Tax Assessment Work Group and County staff to evaluate the County’s reappraisal processes, policies, and procedures. Based on this assessment, the consultant will provide actionable recommendations that will ensure fairness, accuracy, and consistency of tax assessments. The consultant will also evaluate the organizational capacity, staffing, and structure of the Tax Administration Department and suggest changes to implement a fair, accurate, and timely reappraisal process and implement the consultant’s recommendations.
Opening Date:	1/23/2026 2:00 PM
Posted Date:	12/20/2025
Status:	Open
Department:	COUNTY OF ORANGE


Solicitation Number * 367-OC5469	Department COUNTY OF ORANGE	Status Reason Open
Opening Date 2026-01-23T14:00:00.0000000	Posted Date * 2025-12-19T16:35:24.0000000Z	Commodity Code System and system component administration services
Mandatory Conference/Site Visit — —	Special Instructions For additional information visit https://www.orangecountync.gov/Bids.aspx	Solicitation Type * Select RFP IFB RFI
Owner Lenny Amaro
Description Orange County, North Carolina is seeking proposals from qualified consultants to work with the Tax Assessment Work Group and County staff to evaluate the County’s reappraisal processes, policies, and procedures. Based on this assessment, the consultant will provide actionable recommendations that will ensure fairness, accuracy, and consistency of tax assessments. The consultant will also evaluate the organizational capacity, staffing, and structure of the Tax Administration Department and suggest changes to implement a fair, accurate, and timely reappraisal process and implement the consultant’s recommendations.

Attachments RFP367-OC5469 Reappraisal and Tax Assessment Process in Orange County - Final.pdf (697.97 KB)

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Orange County Government

Request for Proposal RFP367-OC5469

Request for Proposals to Conduct an Evaluation of the Reappraisal

and Tax Assessment Process in Orange County, NC

Date of Issue: December 19, 2025

Proposal Opening Date: January 23, 2026

At 2:00 P.M. ET

Direct all inquiries concerning this RFP to:

Jovana Amaro

Finance Manager - Purchasing

Phone: 919-245-2651

Email: finance-purchasing@orangecountync.gov

Electronic responses ONLY will be accepted for this solicitation.

1. PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND

Orange County, North Carolina is seeking proposals from qualified consultants to work with the

Tax Assessment Work Group and County staff to evaluate the County’s reappraisal processes,

policies, and procedures. Based on this assessment, the consultant will provide actionable

recommendations that will ensure fairness, accuracy, and consistency of tax assessments. The

consultant will also evaluate the organizational capacity, staffing, and structure of the Tax

Administration Department and suggest changes to implement a fair, accurate, and timely

reappraisal process and implement the consultant’s recommendations.

The Orange County Tax Administration Office completed a revaluation of real property in 2025.

Orange County is scheduled to conduct a revaluation of real property every four years. Although

the 2025 revaluation followed this four-year schedule, the County was also mandated to conduct

a revaluation in 2025. Under State law, whenever the sales assessment ratio is less than .85 a

reappraisal is required within three years. In 2022, the County’s sales ratio was 0.8197, and by

2024, it had dropped to 0.6445

Property owners received notices of their new assessed values in March 2025. Most property

owners experienced a marked increase in assessed value. On average, the assessed value of

residential properties increased by 52%. The new assessed values caused concern among some

property owners and residents about the accuracy and fairness of the tax assessments. Residents

noted particular concern about disparities in historically Black neighborhoods.

In response, the County emphasized the importance of the appeal process to adjust assessed

values if errors or oversights resulted in an inaccurate value. The Tax Office received a total of

3,348 informal appeals during the informal appeal window that was open from March 21 to April

30, 2025. Following the informal appeal window, the Tax Office received an additional 908 formal

appeals for a total of 4,256 appeals. Approximately 93% of those appeals were residential

property appeals. Following the 2017 revaluation, the County received 2,554 total appeals, and

in 2021, 2,094 appeals were submitted.

Based on concerns involving differences in the increase of higher priced homes compared to

lower priced homes, the County contracted with a consultant to conduct a countywide vertical

equity analysis. The Countywide study found that the Price Related Differentials (PRD) and other

statistical measures were largely within the acceptable ranges identified by the International

Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO).

Separately, the Tax Administration Office conducted a vertical equity analysis of the 1,026 tax

assessment neighborhoods to determine if inequities or other anomalies existed at a more

localized level. Of the neighborhoods with more than five (5) sales, the Tax Office identified 86

neighborhoods that were outside of the vertical equity standards used by the IAAO. Of the

neighborhoods with less than five (5) sales, the Tax Office identified an additional 76

neighborhoods that required a more thorough review as well as neighborhoods identified by an

advocacy group called the Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition.

Those studies revealed inequities at the neighborhood level in some parts of the County. This

work also identified issues with the way that land was valued and that the new assessed values

were not adequately adjusted for deferred maintenance and specific zoning regulations. The

consultant will identify best practice, actionable recommendations to correct those deficiencies.

In addition to the concern about vertical equity, residents also expressed concern about the

fairness of commercial assessments. The consultant will also analyze how commercial

assessments were conducted and the differences between commercial and residential

assessment results and make recommendations on improvements to commercial assessment

processes, policies, and procedures.

The Board of County Commissioners created a Tax Assessment Work Group that is charged with

evaluating the policies, processes, and procedures used by the Orange County Tax Office to

assess property values. The Work Group will provide feedback and input to the consultant as it

examines and evaluates processes and procedures, identifies best practices, and makes

recommendations to improve the equity, consistency, and accuracy of the assessment process.

The County expects that the Work Group will provide feedback to the consultant at milestone

stages of the project: data gathering, data analysis, alternatives analysis, recommendation

development, and the finalization of recommendations.

The Work Group is composed of three County Commissioners, the County Manager, a

representative from the North County Manager Carolina Housing Coalition, the Tax Administrator,

a representative from the Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition, the Budget Director, the

Director of Civil Rights and Civic Life, a non- profit housing provider, the Community Relations

Director, and four community members representing different geographic areas in the County.

GENERAL INFORMATION

2.1 REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL DOCUMENT

The RFP is comprised of the base RFP document, any attachments, and any addenda released

before Contract award. All attachments and addenda released for this RFP in advance of any

Contract award are incorporated herein by reference.

2.2 NOTICE TO CONSULTANTS REGARDING RFP TERMS AND CONDITIONS

It shall be the Consultant’s responsibility to read the Instructions, Orange County’s terms and

conditions, all relevant exhibits and attachments, and any other components made a part of this

RFP and comply with all requirements and specifications herein. Consultants also are responsible

for obtaining and complying with all Addenda and other changes that may be issued in connection

with this RFP.

If Consultants have questions, issues, or exceptions regarding any term, condition, or other

component within this RFP, those must be submitted as questions in accordance with the

instructions in Section 2.4 PROPOSAL QUESTIONS. If Orange County determines that any

changes will be made because of the questions asked, then such decisions will be communicated

in the form of an RFP addendum.

2.3 RFP SCHEDULE

The table below shows the intended schedule for this RFP. Orange County will make every effort

to adhere to this schedule.

Event

Issue RFP

Responsibility

Date and Time

December 19, 2025

Hold Pre-Submittal Conference

January 6, 2026, at 1:00 pm

Submit Written Questions

Provide Response to Questions

Submit Proposals

Contract Award

Contract Effective Date

Consultant

January 9, 2026

January 16, 2026

January 23, 2026, by 2:00 pm

February/March 2026

NOTE: Non-Mandatory Pre-Submittal Conference:

Date: January 6, 2026

Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Time

Instructions:

There will be a non-mandatory pre-submittal virtual conference for all interested Consultants to

take place at 1:00 PM on January 6, 2026. Below is the link to join the Microsoft Teams meeting:

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 248 201 894 285 16

Passcode: t7a3eX6V

2.4 PROPOSAL QUESTIONS

Upon review of the RFP documents, Consultants may have questions to clarify or interpret the

RFP in order to submit the best possible proposal. To accommodate the Proposal Questions

process, Consultants shall submit any such questions by the above due date.

Written questions shall be emailed to finance-purchasing@orangecountync.gov by the date and

time specified above. Consultants should enter “RFP367-OC5469: Questions” as the subject

for the email. Questions submittals should include a reference to the applicable RFP section.

Questions received by the deadline date, Orange County’s response, and any additional terms

deemed necessary by the Orange County will be posted in the form of an addendum to Orange

County website https://www.orangecountync.gov/Bids.aspx and shall become an Addendum to

this RFP. No information, instruction or advice provided orally or informally by any Orange County

personnel, whether made in response to a question or otherwise in connection with this RFP,

shall be considered authoritative or binding. Consultants shall rely only on written material

contained in an Addendum to this RFP.

2.5 PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is an absolute requirement. The consultant shall bear the risk for

late submission due to unintended or unanticipated delay. Any proposal submitted after the

proposal deadline will be rejected. Electronic Responses only will be accepted for this

solicitation. Consultants should enter “RFP367-OC5469: Company’s name, Evaluation of the

Reappraisal and Tax Assessment Process in Orange County, NC”: as the subject for the

email. One Electronic (PDF Format) submittal should be less than 15MB in size and submitted

by 2:00 p.m. EST on January 23, 2026. PDF files should include bookmarks that link to sections

to allow easy document navigation. Electronic submittals shall be emailed to Jovana Amaro,

Finance Manager-Purchasing, at finance-purchasing@orangecountync.gov by the date specified

above. Critical updated information may be included in Addenda to this RFP. It is important that

all Consultants proposing on this RFP periodically check the Orange County’s website

https://www.orangecountync.gov/bids.aspx for any Addenda that may be issued prior to the bid

opening date. All Consultants shall be deemed to have read and understood all information in

this RFP and all Addenda thereto.

2.6 PROPOSAL CONTENTS

Consultants shall populate all attachments of this RFP that require the Consultant to provide

information and include an authorized signature where requested. Consultant RFP responses

shall include the following items, and those attachments should be arranged in the following order:

a) Cover Letter (Identify Project Manager)

b) A written narrative response to address the Project Organization

c) A written narrative response to address the Technical Approach

d) Consultant Experience and Qualifications as it relates to the scope of services and project

tasks/deliverables

e) Consultant’s capability and capacity to perform project

f) Consultant’s references

g) Total cost for the proposed services and a cost for each work element or project phase

h) Acknowledgement of receipt of any addenda.

i) E-Verify Form

j) Non-Discrimination Certification Form

k) Supplemental Vendor Information: Historically Underutilized Businesses Form

This is the opportunity summary page. It provides an overview of this opportunity and a preview of the attached documentation.

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Evaluation of the Reappraisal and Tax Assessment Process in Orange County, NC

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