Good morning,

Many of you have received your re-assessment notices and are understandably concerned about the impact on your future tax bills.

The State requires us and all local governments to keep our assessments between 90% and 110% of the “State Equalized Value”.   This is done to assure that all properties that are similar are assessed equally.    Our contract with our assessor provides for these adjustments which are based on actual real estate transactions in the area.   In short it assures that our individual “piece of the pie” stays consistent.   As a result of rising property values the pie got bigger and our individual pieces got bigger but the ratio of our piece to the overall pie stay the same.

What our re-assessments do NOT DO is automatically raise our property tax bill.   The actual dollar amount that we or any other Town, City, or Village can levy is established by the State Department of Revenue and is subject to strict levy limits.   The myth that “this is how they are going to raise more money” is totally incorrect.  

Our own assessment went up 34% and I am not concerned that my tax bill will go up because of that.    It is consistent with what properties all over Town are seeing and is a direct result of the trend of the last few years of homes and properties selling at prices well above the market.

And lastly please do not blame the assessor.   He is like our accountants, he does not make the rules, nor arbitrarily pick the numbers.   He works within the constraints of the law and the values that are reported in the real estate transfers.

Thank you

Lester Bartel

Town Chairman