By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – The city is close to finishing a two-year revaluation and taxpayers could start seeing new property values in April.

Tax Assessor Cheryl Dubois said her staff needs at least one more month to proofread the database that lists dollar values for about 10,000 properties. Once that’s done, the city will mail information about new property values to taxpayers.

“We won’t mail a thing until we’re sure all the data is correct,” Dubois said.

The new values will be used to figure tax bills for the 2005-06 fiscal year. Those bills would be mailed this summer, and first payments would be due in the fall.

The city uses the assessed value of a property to figure a property owner’s tax bill. The amount is multiplied by the city’s tax rate, currently $29.38 per $1,000 of value, to get the tax bill.

Cities try to keep their citywide assessed value as close as possible to values in the real estate market, but Auburn’s has started to slip.

“I want assessed value to be 100 percent of market value, but you just stay as close as you possibly can – within about 10 percent,” Dubois said. The state’s certified value for Auburn is $1.35 billion for fiscal year 2004-05, but Dubois estimated that was about 80 percent of true market value.

“That normally happens, which is why cities do these every few years,” she said.

The revaluation began in late 2002, with city assessors inspecting homes and businesses. The city opted to do the work itself, rather than hiring consultants to do the work. That saved money, but it made the work take longer than first estimated.

A new computer system and change in management at the top job – Dubois was hired one year ago – also delayed the results.

“When you add all those up – a new computer, a new manager and a complete revaluation – it’s going to take longer,” she said.