Are Whitefield’s land categories too complicated? Would it be cheaper to do a one-shot full assessment every 10 years instead of piecing it together over five or six years? What is just value?
Those were some questions pondered by the six-member assessment advisory committee, appointed to gather information and report back to selectmen early next year on remedies for Whitefield’s persistent headache: its property assessment system.
Jim Fitz-Patrick said he’d consulted a friend knowledgeable about assessing. “He said he can understand why the tax situation in Whitefield is so screwed up because the town is micromanaging definitions of land,” such as having seven or eight classifications for gravel, Fitz-Patrick reported.
“Land is land,” he declared.
Other members meeting last Thursday were chair Dennis Merrill, Andrew Berry, Steve Smith, and John Delvecchio. Wes Keep was absent.
Each had been assigned the task of consulting administrators in nearby and similar rural towns about their approach to assessing. Merrill said Chelsea has three categories – a developed lot, an undeveloped lot, and all other land. Dresden, where the town administrator is also a certified tax assessor, uses three land types, designated average, average plus and average minus. Plus would include waterfront and minus would include steep slopes and wetlands.
Smith found that Windsor, similar in size to Whitefield, paid its assessor $15,000-plus for his services last year. “He doesn’t go around and do assessing, he just administers,” Smith said, adding that a company was hired to do a town-wide update. “They’re happy with their system and hope to do an assessment every 10 years,” asking annual town meeting voters to set aside money in a fund for that purpose.
“The cost is phenomenal. We definitely aren’t as wealthy as Windsor or Jefferson. We are one of the poorest towns around,” Smith said. Further, the town has paid assessors’ agent Jim Murphy about $50,000 over five or six years to “do the equivalent of a full assessment,” and it is nearly time to start over, the committee member said.
Whitefield selectmen, under fire from property owners (including Smith) for errors and inconsistencies in calculating values, established the advisory committee last month. Its purpose is to help the select board ensure the assessing process and results are equitable. Since last December, many taxpayers upset with increases have met with Murphy seeking explanations and adjustments.
As Merrill said, “We’re here because a lot of citizens didn’t think they were being treated fairly.”
“They do the depreciation every 10 years,” Delvecchio said.
However, even in Turner, as in Whitefield, farmers complain about the town assigning a base lot value to every parcel they own.
The advisory committee, as the select board earlier had done, debated this topic. The board’s charge to the committee quotes language found in the Maine Municipal Association’s (MMA) assessment manual: “For the purpose of establishing the valuation of unimproved acreage in excess of an improved house lot, contiguous parcels and parcels divided by a road, power line or right of way may be valued as one parcel when each parcel is five or more acres; the owner gives written consent to the assessor to value the parcels as one parcel; and the owner certifies that the parcels are not held for sale and are not subdivision lots.”
He also argued for keeping the town’s valuation low so as to benefit from state revenues.
Merrill pressed for determining a methodology, rather than a dollar approach, and Delvecchio emphasized the need for fairness.
The committee determined to schedule meetings with town employees and assessors’ agent Murphy to gain insight into the computer program, as well as with Maine Revenue Services and MMA officials. Merrill volunteered to draft the report, and commented that in his preliminary review he found “a lot of exemptions among Whitefield residents” that should be addressed, such as the deferred tax program for low-income senior citizens. Such policies can be detrimental in the short term or have a negative impact farther down the road, it was pointed out.
Andrew Berry said, “There are a couple of things I’ve been chewing over, partly from talking to Murphy. It’s as if assessment had a mystique to it.” Remove the mystique, he recommended. Make line items on the forms clearer. Get rid of the scribbles, smudges, abbreviations with no explanation of what they stand for.
“I found a major mistake on our assessment of Maine Helicopters,” Berry said of his East River Road business. Merrill echoed him. When inquiring about the fairness of his house assessment last year, Merrill said he couldn’t read his tax card. “It was done in pencil, and you couldn’t get a good copy. I took it to a lawyer, who said, ‘Don’t they have typewriters in Whitefield?'”
Fitz-Patrick nodded. “I didn’t recognize my property when I looked at my card. They had me down for two barns. The second one doesn’t exist.”
Merrill suggested a “lot of improvement” is needed in the records and other information provided to the public. “There should be a paper provided to property owners that says, ‘Here’s your property and the method we used [to assess it].'”
Smith agreed. “The more communication with the taxpayer, the fewer problems you’ll have.”
To increase public awareness of the panel’s existence and purpose, there will be a public information-gathering session in December. Delvecchio suggested giving people the option of emailing questions to the chairman in case they can’t attend the meeting. He also urged caution concerning the committee’s purpose. People should see it not as a forum to solve problems but to “get the public’s point of view.” The information shared could lead to problem solving but the panel’s role is to provide an overview of the current system and what the citizens’ panel sees as possible improvements and recommendations, Delvecchio said.
