By Alex Malm
The Town Council received an update regarding the 2023 property revaluation project analysis and preliminary report during the July 10 Town Council meeting.
Assessor, Steve Hamilton, said the last one was done in 2021 and under state law it needs to be done every five years. He added that the Town Council determined it would be more appropriate to do it every year going forward.
Town Council Chair, John Farrell, stated they aren’t doing it every five years anymore so they can be more stabilized with the economy.
Because of the model they put in with going with an every two-year revaluation model, Hamilton said he thinks there will be a lot less variables in the assessments than they saw before.
“It will be much more uniformed than it was in 2021,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton explained that one of the goals with revaluations is to try to get median assessments to sale ratios of 90 to 110%.
He said since the last revaluation, the assessed values to sale ratios for single family homes has dropped to 77.3%, which essentially means sale prices are about 29% higher than the current assessments.
For mobile homes, the percentage has dropped down to 64%, meaning they are selling for a higher rate than what they are assessed at.
“They have been the most impacted by the impact of affordable housing units,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton noted that based on the information they’ve gathered it makes sense to look at all the property values in town, and have assessments done.
“We think that a town wide assessment is an important thing to undertake at this time,” Hamilton said.
One analysis Hamilton said that will need to be done is when it comes to exceptions, saying with the new values they want to make sure people receive the “same bang for the buck” when it comes to the exceptions they receive.
Farrell said they want to have an analysis before the revaluations are sent out to residents in town so there aren’t any surprises.
“I don’t want people to be surprised,” Farrell said.
Farrell explained that while some people know the tax rate will go down a certain amount because of the revolutions, but he wants to make sure there is no confusion and it’s explained as clearly as possible.
Hamilton stated that they invite people to come in for informal hearings where residents can talk to the appraisers so they can get a better understanding of how they came up with the assessments and that they also make the values available on the website for everyone to be able to look up.
“So everyone has a good understanding,” Hamilton said.
It was also noted during the meeting that even with an increase in assessed value, it doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in the amount of taxes paid depending on what the tax rate is set at.