ANDOVER — Sharon Hutchins won election to the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday with 64 votes, Town Clerk Melinda Averill said.

Her competitor in the race, Leo Camire, received 61, Averill said.

Hutchins succeeds Keith Farrington, who retired. The term is for three years.

Town school board members Lindsay Sharkey and Linda Putnam were re-elected; Sharkey received 98 votes and Putnam received 41 write-ins.

At Saturday’s annual town meeting, residents voted to raise or appropriate $10,000 for the property revaluation account, bringing it to $63,000.

It’s been 26 years since the last revaluation, Treasurer Barbara Simmons said.

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“It just has to be done,” Selectman Jane Rich said. “Taxation is supposed to be fair and equitable, and it is not fair and equitable in Andover right now.”

According to the annual Town Report, “Our assessing ratio dropped 84 percent which means that those with homestead exemptions received a reduction in assessed value of $8,400. If our ratio had been 100 percent, they would have received a reduction in assessed value of $10,000.”

Rich said it would take two years of planning to get the revaluation done.

“It costs $85 a parcel to revaluate, and we have 950 parcels now, which amounts to around $80,000 that the revaluation would cost us,” she said.

Selectman Keith Farrington said, “The town would have received roughly $16,000 more of (tax) reimbursement money from the state this year, if we’d gotten 100 percent valuation.”

The town’s assessing ratio dropped 85 to 84 percent this year, he said.

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“What we’re losing from the state reimbursement right now is impacting each property tax owner roughly $30 per year; your taxes would be less,” meeting moderator Rob Duplessie said. “So it’s costing you right now roughly $30 more per year on your tax bill.”

Rich and Farrington said they do some property assessments but they use a professional assessor for any property that is not “cut and dry.”

Treasurer Barbara Simmons told voters, “The last time the town had a revaluation was in 1990, so we’re really well past the time. We need to have one done.”

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net


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