(a) The county seat in each county shall appraise and assess real property taxes on all property owned by the State excluding properties owned by the Delaware Housing Authority, Delaware Solid Waste Authority, Delaware State University, or the University of Delaware, lying within their respective city limits. Each county seat shall annually submit statements of these appraisals and assessments unto the Secretary of the Department of Finance, said assessments and appraisals to be in accordance with their respective procedures for appraising and assessing real property. (b) The Secretary of Finance shall examine and inspect the aforementioned assessment and appraisals and shall have all rights to question the assessments and appeal any decisions regarding the same. If the Secretary of Finance is satisfied that the assessments and appraisals are accurate, then the Secretary shall direct payment to the County Seat according to the following schedule: (1) For those county seats with a population between 0–50,000 residents, the Secretary shall direct a payment of 30.8% of the tax assessed to said county seats. (2) For those county seats with a population above 50,000 residents, the Secretary shall direct a payment of 100.0% of the tax assessed to said county seats. (c) The total amount of payments made by the Secretary with respect to all county seats shall not exceed $3,900,000 in any state fiscal year. (d) In any fiscal year, if total compensatory payments, as calculated under subsection (a) of this section, exceeds the amount allocated in subsection (c) of this section, then the payments to be received by each county seat shall be the product of the amount appropriated to the county seats, not to exceed the total payment amount established in subsection (c) of this section, multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the payment that would otherwise be due to a county seat under subsections (a) and (b) of this section and the denominator is the total of all compensatory payments that would otherwise be due to all county seats under subsections (a) and (b) of this section. The Secretary of Finance has the right to withhold payment to any county seat until the assessments and appraisals of all 3 counties have been submitted and verified.
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