The tax assessor in Jackson County says $400 million in county property was damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Benny Goff added Monday that a $250 million boom in residential construction helped counteract the impact of the storm damage in the Gulf Coast county.

In releasing the real and personal property rolls, Goff said from 2005 to 2006, the county’s appraised value decreased by $101.5 million, or 2 percent.

“That means we have 98 percent of what we had last year, which is really good,” Goff told The Sun Herald of Gulfport.

The assessed value is down 1.2 percent, or about $7.2 million.

“If it hadn’t been for the new construction, we would be a lot worse off,” Supervisor Manly Barton said. “Even with this number we’ll still have to do some budget reductions, because we won’t see the usual 5 to 6 percent growth.”