By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – A citywide revaluation is no reason for taxpayers or city councilors to panic, according to the state’s top property tax official.

“Revaluations are considered a four-letter word in many communities. But they are necessary,” said Dave Ledew, acting director of the Property Tax division of the Maine Department of Revenue.

City Councilors invited Ledew to their Monday night workshop meeting to explain some details about revaluations and property value calculations around the state. Auburn’s taxpayers are no worse off than those in other parts of the state, he said.

In fact, Ledew praised the city for beginning the revaluation process earlier in the year.

“They’ve definitely built-in more lead time than we see in other cities,” Ledew said. “You have a lot of time here to solve any problems.”

The city assessing office began the revaluation in 2001 and wrapped it up in May of this year, according to Assessor Cheryl Dubois. The city mailed revaluation notices to taxpayers in November, showing values that doubled or tripled in many cases.

The city’s notices also included a property tax calculation based on a $22 mill rate, and that showed property taxes doubling or tripling for many homes as well. It’s led to citywide tax reform movement and possible recall of Mayor Normand Guay and four city councilors.

The revaluation won’t be completed until the spring, Dubois said. The city sets the property value on April 1 and should have the total valuation calculated by May. Current estimates put the total value at about $1.8 billion.

Dubois said her staff has scheduled more than 600 meetings with taxpayers since the letters were mailed. She admitted that some of the valuations had errors, and those have been fixed.

Errors are part of a municipal property valuation, Ledew said. Municipal assessments are designed to be broad in nature, not specific like a home loan appraisal. While a private appraiser is looking for the specific condition of a certain home, a municipal assessment is designed to give values for an entire range of homes.

Councilor Kelly Matzen agreed

“We would hope that the individual homeowners would catch any discrepancies,” said Matzen. “We don’t want to see a lot errors, but we’d expect there would be some. And we expect the individual homeowners to bring those to the city’s attention and have them fixed.”

The meeting was attended by 22 people, including members of the newly formed United Citizens of Auburn, a group monitoring the city’s budget process. Member Gary Baillargeon said Ledew didn’t answer many questions.

“All he did was come down on the city’s side,” Baillargeon said. “He just told the council the assessor did everything right.”