Rumford Assessors’ Agent Linnell Gironda with Jim Rinaldo, a member of the Board of Assessors. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

RUMFORD — The town is performing a market value adjustment this year, necessary to keep Rumford adherent to the Maine State Law of maintaining assessed values at a minimum of 70 percent-plus of actual values, said Jim Rinaldo, a member of the Board of Assessors.

Speaking at the Select Board meeting Aug. 15, he said that if this is not done this year, the town will be at 62 to 65 percent of the market rate next year, well below the state threshold.

Reading from a statement, Rinaldo said this update ensures the town can provide the full benefit of property tax exemptions such as the Homestead Exemption, Veteran’s Exemption and Blind Exemption. Without this update, the amount of tax relief provided would be cut substantially and lead to an increase in property taxes owed.

“Completing the market value adjustment is going to increase the total valuation of the town, however, we do not yet have all the pertinent figures necessary to calculate a mill rate so it is unknown what this increase in the total valuation will have on the mill rate on taxes owed,” he said.

Assessors’ Agent Linnell Gironda, CMA, said, “Every year, Maine Revenue Services, which oversees my office, does sales revenue analysis, and every year, they tell us what we can certify at. It doesn’t cost anything, because it’s part of what the state does. This year, we were going to come in at 75%, and next year at 65 %.”

“That would mean you all would only get 75% and 65% of your Homestead and Veterans exemptions. It would also mean that we would only get 75 and 65 percent of the valuation of our big industrial properties, like the mill and the hydro,” she said.
Geronda said the board decided to go with the least amount of adjustment this year, rather than do no adjustment this year and then potentially next year have to have a huge adjustment. “So we’re trying to ease into it. Maine Revenue audits my books every year to make sure that I’m following the state law. And part of their audit is this sales ratio analysis.

The market adjustment will take effect when the town goes to commitment in October.

Town Manager George O’Keefe said, “The value of the market rate adjustment on an individual home, perhaps, as the assessing board says, is going to be 40%. However, that does not mean that their taxes due will go up by 40% because there are other properties that we assess every year — large industrial properties — which have a shift in value at times.

He noted, “It is critical that the public not become concerned that their property tax bill, by default, would go up by 40% simply because of market rate adjustment. It’s not true, and that’s partly because we have these significant, large specialized properties in our tax base that have some variation in their value and we also have things like community solar which pay us money.”

O’Keefe added, “There’s a lot of calculation that has to occur prior to the Select Board being able to set a mill rate and to see what that would look like compared to somebody’s tax bill.”

He estimated an impact might instead be somewhere between 16 and 20 percent on a single-family home. “I think that’s more along the lines of what a potential impact is. There is impact. There’s no question about it. We’re just not sure on how much. And the assessors won’t know much until they have figures from the mill.”

Board Chairman Chris Brennick suggested that the town provide information about the assessing market adjustment on the town’s website.

“Put it on the website so people know this is coming. To make sure that people know, so that they’re not finding out when they open their tax bill,” he said.

O’Keefe said, “The result of this market rate adjustment is that the relative value of commercial and residential properties of our town, compared to the industrial properties, is going to grow. So a larger proportion of the tax burden will be carried to the commercial and residential properties, and a smaller proportion of the tax burden will be carried by the industrial properties, and that’s because they’re already at current value, and commercial and residential is not.”

Select Board member John Pepin said, “I think it’s important to stress that this is Maine State Law driven, not Rumford driven, and it’s statewide.”

Geronda added, “Pretty much every city and town in the state has to do this.”