Town residents began receiving preliminary property reassessments at the end of March as part of the town’s reassessment project, which began last year.
Acting Town Assessor Laurie Lambertsen said letters began to be mailed out on March 26. A full assessment of town property has not been done since 2006, and officials opted to do a reassessment to make sure all sites were assessed at full market value.
“A lot has changed in the market since that time,” said Lambertsen. “It comes in cycles.”
The original plan called for the town assessor’s office to complete assessments for residential property, while GAR Associates was contracted to take care of the commercial and utility side. Eventually it was decided GAR Associates would handle the whole project because of staffing issues.
Former Town Assessor Patricia McVee said at the start of the project last year that some commercial property had been assessed far below market value. The only way for those assessments to be changed was for a townwide reassessment to take place because it is illegal to reassess individual properties.
The project won’t necessarily bring the town more revenue, but will likely shift some of what residents are paying onto commercial property owners.
According to GAR Associates, the total taxable value of town properties will go up an average of 10 percent. Commercial property will, on average, see an assessment increase of 18 percent, residential property will see an increase of about 6 percent.
In recent days, some residents have said the reassessment project is not being done fairly.
Bethlehem Republican Chairman Fred DiMaggio said he didn’t think the reassessment was needed because most property was already evaluated at 100 percent, and some areas of town may have been assessed differently.
“Not far behind will be tax increases,” he said. “The town board is tone deaf to what taxpayers are facing in Bethlehem. We are all willing to pay our fair share, but what is fair?”
Lambertsen said information was not yet available to identify trends within the town to see which areas decreased or increased the most. Property owners could see a change in their assessment because of changes in the real estate market, or because they made additions or were originally assessed low and “got a good deal.”
“Some don’t like to question their assessment or go through the grievance process so their assessment might be thrown out of whack,” said Lambertsen.
Supervisor John Clarkson said none of the assessment work was influenced by him or anyone else on the town’s staff.
“The sole decision the (town) made was, we wanted a reassessment of property that was fair, and we wanted to make sure it was something we could keep up with in the future.”
The supervisor said the hope is this project will be the start of more frequent reassessments. The goal is to do an assessment every four years.
Although there will most likely be an increase in the town’s tax levy, Clarkson said many who own residential property should see their tax rate decrease or stay the same. He also predicted about a 1.5 percent levy increase next year, which is below the state’s tax cap.
“But a lot of times, the town’s tax base will increase, and then the tax rate will go down,” said Lambertsen.
This is what Clarkson predicts will happen.
“Even if a person’s assessment increased by 5 percent, they will be paying a lesser share of the burden and should see their taxes decrease,” he said.
GAR Associates Project Manager David Barnett said two public workshops will be held, and residents looking for additional help understanding the assessment can call the toll-free hotline at 1-866-910-1776. For those who wish to challenge their assessment, informal reviews will be held through April, with the formal grievance date set for Friday, May 27.
Barnett said the preliminary assessments also don’t include any exemptions residents might have. All changes during the informal review period are binding if the property owner is happy with the change. If not, they can grieve their assessment, and if they are still unhappy, continue on through litigation.
The final assessment will be filed on July 1.
The new assessments will first be used to determine taxes this August for the 2014-15 school year, and then for the 2015 town taxes in January.
“We’re never going to get it perfectly accurate for every house, but we’re trying to get there,” said Clarkson.
The next workshop will be held on Thursday, April 3, at 5:30 p.m. at Bethlehem Town Hall. Additional information can also be found at the Bethlehem Public Library.