By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Lewiston property owners could see new assessed property values in March, about the time city councilors begin studying the coming year’s budget.

That might give taxpayers a better idea about what the revaluation means, said City Administrator Jim Bennett.

“They don’t have to speculate about what the mill rate will or won’t be,” Bennett said. “They’d be able to look at the new values and compare that to the budget I present and really see what it means.”

Lewiston began its property revaluation in June, using a private firm to survey business, commercial and multi-family properties. The city began mailing surveys to residential property owners in September. They’ll use those to update values.

Bennett said he’s been watching Auburn carefully over the past couple of weeks and thinks there are some real differences. Auburn’s assessed value is expected to increase from $1 billion to about $1.8 billion. Residential values appear to be increasing faster than commercial values, however. That could shift some of the tax burden to homeowners.

Lewiston could see a similar shift in the tax burden, but Bennett thinks the shift will be lessened by recent developments. Wal-Mart’s construction of a distribution center could be online by April 1, and that alone will mean $400,000 in new property revenues for the city.

“Because of that, because of some other investments, I suspect we’ll have less of a shift,” Bennett said. “It’s really tough to say at this point because I don’t have hard numbers and I won’t for another couple of months.”

Lewiston has not changed its assessed property values since 1988, although city assessing staff updated land values in 2003. The city’s current assessed valuation is about $1.46 billion.

Bennett is investigating other ways to protect residential property owners, he said. He declined to elaborate, saying he would bring ideas before the City Council in January.

Copy the Story Link