There's a New Assessor in Town
Building on her promise to make Town Hall more open and transparent, Putnam Valley's new supervisor, Alison Jolicoeur, has arranged a "Meet the Assessor" session this Saturday, May 16th, from 10am until noon.
Why might you want to devote part of what looks like it will be a beautiful Saturday to the Byzantine subject of property assessment? Because it's an important element - though certainly not the only one - in what your property tax bill will look like this fall. And because the new assessor, John Wolham, who spent 41 years working on property tax issues for the State of New York, represents change. He's applying everything he learned in that role along with a fresh set of eyes to town properties that his predecessor, Sheryl Luongo, reviewed for the past 18 years.
Wolham began his part-time tenure on March 4th, which left him little time to assemble the tentative tax roll he had to produce by the third week of April. That made reassessing all town properties impossible, with the result that for the second year in a row most property assessments are below market value. Wolham estimates that, on average, the town's properties are being assessed this year at 90% of market value rather than the 100% level that is the state's goal.
It's unclear what that discrepancy will mean for individual homeowners, since many other factors affect tax bills. However, all things being equal, it's likely to affect the tax rate applied to properties. Given the compressed timeframe Wolham had to work with, he concentrated on making sure that exemptions homeowners applied for were correctly determined and he focused the rest of his attention on evaluating homes that underwent major renovations or new construction rather than those with modest improvements.
If homeowners want to dispute their tentative assessments, which can be found here, Wolham welcomes them to schedule time with him. (He will also be available for an hour before and after this Saturday's session.) He advises homeowners to do research in advance of any meeting so they know how comparable properties are valued when sold and are sure the formal description of their property is accurate. If asked, he is also willing to inspect properties in person to verify their characteristics.
If a consensus is reached, Wolham submits a stipulation to the Board of Assessment Review. If no consensus is reached, homeowners can appeal to the board (made up of Chair Henry Lopez and four other residents) between now and Grievance Day on May 26th.
Wolham says that in reviewing applications for exemptions he had to deny almost a third of them, mostly for seniors, because their income exceeded the allowable ceiling of $58,400.
Going forward, Wolham's goal is to update the valuation of the town's properties. He said the last time photographic images were collected for all of the town's inventory was in the 2005 to 2007 timeframe. He hopes to acquire software that other towns use to maintain current images of homes. "I'm trying to efficiently find ways to identify where there are errors in the town's inventory," Wolham said. "Visits from assessors are considered intrusive and I don't want to make people uncomfortable."
With more accurate data in hand, Wolham believes that by next year he will be able to get the town's assessment level closer to the 100% of market value level sought by the state. He cautions that does not necessarily mean everyone's taxes will go up; indeed, some may go down. Ultimately, property tax bills are determined by the revenue that is required to be derived from that source to support the budgets of the town, school districts, special districts, and the county.
And as we know, few subjects are more fraught. Happy Saturday!
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