AUBURN – Admitting that mistakes were made in a citywide property revaluation, City Manager Pat Finnigan urged taxpayers to be patient.
Finnigan told city councilors and a group of about 60 taxpayers Monday night that her staff was working to correct any mistakes and make the new assessed property value estimate as accurate as possible.
“It pains me that there were mistakes,” she said. “What I don’t want is people to assume that we are just accepting things as they are.”
It was the calmest City Council meeting since the new values were mailed to property owners early in November. Total citywide values would increase from $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion, based on the revaluation.
The letter announcing the revaluation also included a tax bill calculation, which showed taxes on some properties doubling or tripling. That has led to a citywide tax revolt and a recall petition drive that targets Mayor Normand Guay and four city councilors.
Roughly 10 people spoke Monday night, all urging the city to make changes to the revaluation.
“People are not upset about being reassessed” said Ed Desgrosseilliers of 121 Hatch Road. “They’re upset with being assessed unfairly.”
Even former Ward 2 City Councilor Harvey Theriault urged some review of the revaluation.
“The reassessment is flawed,” he said. “It needs professional scrutiny.”
Finnigan said assessing staff is trying to fix any errors themselves, but she said she’d talk to councilors about having the revaluation reviewed by outside experts.
Budget begins
Councilors spent their workshop before Monday’s meeting considering the 2006-07 budget, starting with a review of five-year budget projections. She predicted non-property-tax revenues would continue to decline, while costs from state and federal mandates would continue to rise.
That puts special pressure on property taxes, and on city councilors. They’ll have to find ways to trim the budget, possibly by cutting services. For example, an $18,000 cut in services would mean a 1-cent drop in the city’s tax rate. Councilors will have to cut $1.8 million from the budget to reduce the tax rate by $1 per $1,000 of property value.
Councilors will continue their review next week.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.