LEWISTON – Tax bills should begin hitting Lewiston mailboxes this weekend, with a 10-cent surprise built in.

Finance Director Dick Metivier said the property tax bills were based on a $24.90 per $1,000 of value tax rate – not the $25 tax rate councilors assumed when they adopted the $43.8 million budget in May.

“That was based on preliminary property value calculations, and we were able to bring those up,” he said. The final city valuation for fiscal 2009 is $1.851 billion.

“It was a little more than we expected, so that should bring the individual tax bills down just a bit,” Metivier said.

The first payment based on the new tax bills is due by Sept. 15, and the final half is due on March 15. Tax bills are being mailed Friday to 13,287 tax payers – 11,766 bills for real estate taxes and 1,521 for personal property taxes.

The city’s new property values are based on a phased in revaluation to equalize property values. According to state law, cities must perform a property revaluation if their assessed value is less than 70 percent of the citywide market value. Lewiston’s assessed value would have dropped below that level this year, but assessors updated the values on several properties in the city.

“They looked at the lowest values, the ones that were the most out of whack, and increased them closer to their market value,” Metivier said. Councilors stopped short of a approving a full property revaluation this spring because of a lull in the real estate market.