By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Taxpayers can expect to see new property values late in October, according to City Manager Pat Finnigan.

Finnigan said city staff should have a new citywide property valuation project finished and entered into a new computer system by the end of this month. Then, it will take another month to double-check the results and send them out to taxpayers.

The city had hoped to have the new values to taxpayers this month.

“But that was back during the budget discussions, and we’ve had to revise the timeline since then,” Finnigan said.

The city began re-evaluating property citywide in May 2002. Originally, city staff and councilors had planned to use the new values as a part of the 2005-2006 budget. They changed their mind during budget discussions, choosing to delay the revaluation for a year.

“We had to reimport the new values into the old tax system in order to get out the tax bills for this year,” Finnigan said. Those tax bills were mailed in August.

“Now, we’ve had to reimport them back into the new system,” she said. “That’s being done now. Once it is, we’ll proofread it again to make sure no data was lost during the conversions.”

The new valuation should increase the city’s total value by $703 million. Taxpayers will begin getting tax bills based on those values in August 2006.

Property owners who think the city’s assessment is wrong can meet with city property assessors.

“I think most people will be happy with results, but many are going to think the value is too high,” Finnigan said. “We don’t want them to assume that it’s done, that there’s nothing they can do. If they have questions, we’ll be available to talk to them.”

City staff members are already preparing their fiscal year budget for the 2006-2007. Finnigan said she hopes to bring councilors into those discussions in October or November. That’s at least six months earlier than the city normally begins budget discussions.

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