Mayor and Council Pass Resolution for Tax Reassessment

The Mayor and Council passed a resolution to reassess commercial and residential properties in the borough at Monday night's work session.

Since the 2004 revaluation, the housing market has sharply declined, taking property values with it, said the borough's tax assessor, Maureen Kaman. 

Kaman informed the council that a reassessment is called for when there is a sizeable disparity between the assessed value of a property and the true market value based on recent sales.  

Kaman recommended that the borough perform a hybrid reassessment as a means to create stability and reduce the number of appeals. A hybrid reassessment is conducted to equitably spread the tax burden by appraising each property according to its true market value and base assessments on this value.

"Hybrid" refers to an outside revaluation company retained by the borough to provide the additional manpower needed to perform all of the on-site property inspections. Once the information is gathered, both the tax assessor and the contracted revaluation firm will analyze the data and establish the formulas to determine the valuation of a property. The estimated cost for conducting and executing the reassessment is $200,000.

Given the housing market fluctuations, the tax assessor said that tax appeals are on the rise with 123 property owners filing tax appeals in 2011.

"The town loses money with every appeal," Kaman said.

Additionally, she informed the council that there have been a number of short sales, estate sales, foreclosures and bankruptcies during 2011, all resulting in a loss of stable ratables for the town.

Performing reassessments will cut the number of tax appeals for 2013 and ultimately save the town money, Kaman said. 

"If we don't do this, we'll have appeals every year," she said.

Additionally, 284 flood area properties have received a property tax reduction for 2012. Kaman said she did this because, "These property owners would have appealed and we would have had a loss."

The Mayor and Council passed a resolution allowing Kaman to file a hybrid reassessment plan with the county and send out RFQ's (requests for quotations) to revaluation companies.