AUBURN – A citywide property revaluation last year showed homeowners’ taxes going up – for some, doubling or tripling – while business taxes decreased.

The shift caused an uproar among taxpayers, a number of whom confronted city officials and demanded answers. At one contentious meeting, City Manager Pat Finnigan said she and city councilors felt taxpayers’ pain.

An analysis of city officials’ assessments and proposed tax bills showed that taxes would have increased significantly for Finnigan and every property-owning city councilor, based on a full property revaluation.

But in response to the public outcry, the council decided to minimize the tax shift and set values just above the state’s threshold of 70 percent of market value. New tax values will be phased in over two years, with assessments set at 80 percent of market value this year.

Nearly a year ago, the Sun Journal published city officials’ proposed taxes and compared them with a few high-profile Auburn businesses. The analysis illustrated the sharp tax shift from business to residential properties.

A new analysis based on the reduced market value assessments approved by the council shows less of a shift, with city officials’ taxes rising by much less. Tax decreases for businesses shrunk or disappeared altogether.