By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Appraisers are already studying commercial buildings, part of a property value survey due next spring.

One of the goals will be to complete the work and notify property owners of potential tax bill increases early next year, before the city begins reviewing its budget.

“We certainly don’t want to confuse the processes,” said Joe Grube, Lewiston’s chief assessor. City leaders in Auburn decided this week to wait until after the city budget has been adopted to notify taxpayers of property value increases.

Lewiston has not updated its property values since 1988, although assessors did update land values two years ago. The city’s assessed value is currently about $1.46 billion, and Grube said that’s about 87 percent of the full market value.

“The market value didn’t really change much for a good number of years,” Grube said. “But after 2000, the real estate market took off. So, now is a really good time to get this done.”

Lewiston will rely on a private firm to survey business, commercial and multifamily properties. That company, appraisal firm CLT, began visiting those properties this week.

City staff will survey Lewiston’s 7,500 residential properties and 600 mobile homes beginning this summer. They will mail a copy of the current assessing information to homeowners and ask them to note any changes.

“We just want them to verify what we have listed and mark off if anything has been changed,” Grube said.

Staffers will also inspect the outside of just about every home. They won’t go in most of them, however.

“We’ve already done most of that,” Grube said. “We try to get in and inspect every one of them every four years, so we’ve seen a lot of the properties already.”