Tuesday, April 27, 2010

REVALUATION UPDATES!

REVALUATION UPDATES…. 2010 Assessment Information – DOES NOT EXIST???...We are hitting a brick wall in terms of obtaining information from the State Office of Real Property Tax in Syracuse (ORPS) and the Assessor. We have been trying to find the TOTAL 2010 "preliminary” assessed values for Brookfield (not just the individual parcels) and the other Towns in the CAP (Cooperative Assessment Program): Fenner, Nelson & Smithfield. By comparing the 2009 TOTAL assessed values to the 2010 TOTAL re-assessed values we can get a ball park idea of how much our assessments REALLY went up as a total percentage. We are being told this information DOES NOT EXIST????.... How can that be if it is on the County Website? Why can’t they give us that “preliminary” total? Is it because we will find Brookfield took the biggest hit???? I’m afraid so.


REVALUATION UPDATE ….We are NOT ALONE! Town of NELSON….Sounds like an opening line to the “Twilight Zone”, but that’s what this whole process is beginning to sound like! The Town of NELSON, one of our other CAP members is also up in arms over the revaluations. Check out the Madison Courier article posted on the Brookfield Town Website detailing their contentious meeting. Ironically, the following week, who should show up at Brookfield’s March 27 protest and speak, but their Supervisor who left me with the impression Nelson and the other CAP towns were satisfied with the revaluation. Apparently, this is not the case.


REVALUATION UPDATE…..90% of the Properties in Brookfield had their ASSESSMENTS INCREASED….Street by street analysis is showing that approximately 90% of the properties saw their assessed values increase. …not the one-third we were told to expect by the Assessor, the Town Board and ORPS….this is almost THREE TIMES the number of properties that we were told to expect. See the Town website for a Street-by-Street breakdown.

REVALUATION UPDATE….Where do these “Assessment Values” come from?
It is appearing that a vacant parcel in Brookfield is being valued the same as a vacant parcel in CAZENOVIA (Nelson). Assessed values of vacant property have in some cases tripled in Brookfield. Is this the case? ORPS does not provide/doesn’t have this comparison for 2010 on a preliminary basis…HOWEVER, they would have had to have it to perform their oversight analysis of the assessor’s figures back in February.

REVALUATION UPDATE….Why can’t we find the Town’s contract with the Assessor? A question has come up at several Town Board meetings regarding terms of the Assessor’s contract or any agreements with Brookfield and under the CAPS agreement, yet the Town does not appear to have a copy. Several requests have been made and gone unanswered.

BOTTOM LINE: The lack of information and sometimes, the outright unwillingness to provide information only makes people more suspicious. These are legitimate questions that deserve to be answered.

Furthermore, this is also the time to use this information to consider whether continued participation in the CAP is truly in the Town’s best interest and explore our OPTIONS? Rather than blaming the assessor, it may be the State’s assessment formulas and valuations under the CAP agreement that deserve closer scrutiny.

By being lumped into ONE DISTRICT with the other three, wealthier and better located towns, we appear to be keeping their values and assessment costs down, while they are pushing our assessments & costs up.

We also need to ask: What is a 100% equalization rate actually costing us over the long run? How much “additional” aid & sales tax will we pick up as a result of the 100% equalization? Equalization helps the state and local government borrow more money against our total property values…sounds like the Home Mortgage Crisis all over again, at a grander level.

Lastly, are we trading away our self-governance for $1,200 a year? Do we really need to be in a CAP in order to share an Assessor? What are our options?