Dissatisfied property taxpayers met separately with the Whitefield Board of Selectmen at the board’s regular Monday meeting. All were seeking abatement because of jumps as high as $3200 in their tax bills and all hoped the figures were wrong.
“I don’t mind paying my share of taxes but not more than anybody else,” said Anthony Garofalo.
Board chairman Steve McCormick tried to explain that “there were hundreds of properties where taxes went up” and said he wished he had asked licensed assessors’ agent Jim Murphy to upgrade the homes of selectmen first.
“The town of Whitefield has never had a reassessment,” McCormick said. “That’s the problem we’re having.” Historically, low property taxes have long been a magnet for buyers seeking to become residents.
“The ones that get evaluated first are the ones that file a notice to build,” said selectman Kurt Miller.
The three property owners who approached the board Oct. 27 undertook new construction or made improvements. “If you do an addition, we automatically do an assessment,” said McCormick.
In the past three or four years, assessor Murphy has been assisting the town by inspecting and measuring properties, usually just the exterior of buildings. He then updates the property tax cards to bring all properties closer to fair market value. Eventually groups of properties, such as waterfront, will be more accurately assessed.
It is possible the work will be completed by next year, McCormick said. “A lot of it is done.”
Property owner Wes Keep, who said his bill was “$20 short of doubling last year’s tax bill,” suggested the board “put off my tax increase till then.”
McCormick replied, “Taxes have gone to commitment so it’s not quite that easy.”
The abatement seekers said they had used the town report to compare their holdings with similar properties and noticed a large difference in tax assessment.
McCormick cautioned that the town report “is two years old so (the figures) you’re looking at are two years old. The state told us we’re at 60 percent of the state’s valuation, so we’re re-evaluating the town section by section.” The alternative is to ask voters to approve $75,000 to $100,000 at town meeting, he said, “so we can (assess) everybody and be done with it.”
Selectwoman Charlene Bartlett, who thanked one couple for not shouting, commented, “We can’t get to them all at once.”
Bartlett said the board would meet with Murphy “to go over the increase difference between last year and this.” She also handed out abatement applications to the property owners and urged them to bring their concerns, including alleged errors in square footage estimates, to Murphy, who works one day a week at the town office.
Michael Starn, communications director at the Maine Municipal Authority, said Tuesday that Whitefield’s approach to reassessing, by “picking up” on home improvements, is “very normal”.
He said, “If I put up a garage, then I’m going to be taxed for that additional value. But if my house goes up in value because I’m on the lake, that’s more of a revaluation.”
Whitefield voters have never approved a building permit ordinance. In a community where a building permit is required, however, the estimated cost of the renovation would get “built into the value of the home,” Starn said. Then, during a revaluation, information is available on all homes and can be compared “to see if the properties are valued close to what the fair market value is.”
Also, having an assessors’ agent come in one day a week, as Murphy does, “is quite common in communities where the selectmen are the assessors,” said Starn. “It helps them get (property) values where they should be, to be equitable.”
Starn said, “There’s nothing 100 percent fair about assessing properties,” and 100 percent accuracy isn’t possible. A “reasonably fair” assessment is the goal.
Letting properties stay as they are does not meet the requirement of the State Constitution, he added. “The Constitution says all property shall be assessed at its just value, and that’s interpreted by the courts as market value, the methodology we use for assessing property. Unless you appraised property ever single year, you would never have it absolutely accurate.”
Individual appraisals would cost perhaps $200-$300, Starn estimated, and “there aren’t any communities that can afford that.” The standard approach is to “do a visual inspection, take the property tax record and update it with new information,” he said. After that, sales ratios studies are done to show what similar types of properties are selling for, and values can be adjusted to bring them closer to fair market value.
Whitefield’s mil rate was recently set at 17, compared to 16.5 mils for the preceding year.
