##VIDEO ID:Rl1GaVn4GvI## all right welcome to the board of assessors meeting on Wednesday January 22nd at 4:30 at 382 North Main Street um we are here with the members ayen Smith Marilyn gini Martin grudin director Diane bishop and assistant Alissa Goodra in accordance with mgl chapter 38 section 20 elcat is taping our meetings and there's no one here in attendance to view them and we tape our own meetings and we'll start out with a view of the minutes from uh December 18th Mr chairman I have reviewed the Amendments from our meeting of December 18th I find them to be in order and move that they be accepted uh make a motion to accept second all those in favor I I okay start off with some uh 20 25 motor vehicle excise commitment number one amount of what is it 2,1 37699 81 and those bills are in this is motor vehicle excise yep for the new calendar year and they're anticipated to go out on February 10th and I believe they are due back um by March 12th or 13th I can't remember it's on the bill okay okay uh 2024 motor vehicle excise commitment number 7 warrant amount of 19,99 7695 what is that left over in last year yes anyone who registered after the last commitment of to through December 31st and we have a fiscal year 2025 vot excise Rec commitment warrant in amount of $5 oh and that would be another community sent it on to us after they build it they evaded it and then sent it on because it come to I'm sorry I it says five and it says 25 on it is 25 thank you just for uh official purposes yes good good catch thank you yeah yeah I'm really with it um motor vehicle exciser bait 23 and 24 for December amount of $2,973 76 uh 2025 real estate exemption for December in the amount of $6,279 75 for a CPA of $1,496 that's the exemptions what exemptions are those those would be our Elder Le our blind and our veterans that we approved last month okay Y and fiscal 25 real estate a batement for the swap program for December in the amount of uh 32488 and CPA 32307 what is the swap please uh it is the senior work off abatement program okay great and notice to the accountant for a lot of the stuff we just read for 2,157 70175 moving right along la3 sales report for the month of December I don't have it in front of me oh I did I I saw one that uh I think should be given a non arms length code and let me find that one whenever I see the name air is on it I think that's what it yeah you picked it up there yeah that was an Asis sale and there was no inspections no nothing and they've already taken out a permit for the rehabilitation so you still think that's arms and Link on that one was it on MLS yes it was on MLS it was okay it was that's um this one here but because it has that rating of it a 1.78 okay so what's kind of could skew things though you know so what's going to end up happening is we have to wait until next year and by then this property will have already been renovated and it'll end up with an O code which is an improvement after the property was improved um after the sale so once we have a better handle of what's going on there where's the inventory and anyone apply for a batement on that one for this past year no okay not not as of yet at least okay yeah there's no inventory there was five homes listed L metal for the first two weeks um there's been nothing and you up to 18 now before Christmas uh any other questions on this Hayden on the sales you didn't sell your house okay no good good to go uh building permit report for the month of December any new homes I believe there was three new homes and it brought our year to date up to I think it was 28 28 new homes for the year go I think there'll be should be more this year are these completed homes or permited homes pered they just received a permit in December yes so okay so the 28 homes has received a permit at some point this year of this year right all right so some of those aren't finished probably correct 10 of those probably three do do not even have a foundation yet okay because if it was just pulled last month they're just probably prepping the L we had a bunch before July 1st I remember not much going on huh for the building permits no well in December you do not get as many right permits you know people are concentrating on holidays and all right that's it for building permits and now we move on to director's update uh Happy New Year uh New Year uh the fiscal year um tax bills did go out the third quarter bills were in taxpayers mailbox by December 23rd which was earlier than we anticipated but they're there uh this tax bill reflects the FY 25 assessments which were approved October 1st of 2024 in the new tax rate which is $18.48 and that was approved November 25th the third quarter tax bill is generally higher than the first two preliminary that was paid in August and November due to the setting of the tax rate and an approval of the new values once the tax rate and values are updated the fiscal 25 tax is calculated for the full fiscal year and then the preliminary payments are deducted and the remaining balance is split into two installments uh for February 1st and May 1st um it is the responsibility of this office to ensure we have fair and Equitable assessments and if a taxpayer feels that they are unfairly assessed they do have the right to file an abatement no later than February 3rd of this year it's generally February 1st but the first falls on a weekend uh and they should be into us uh by the close of the business day and if a taxpayer has not received their tax bill as of yet they really should contact the collector's office uh fiscal year 26 form of lists in three ABC these um all businesses that have personal property was sent a bright orange postcard uh with information as to their responsibilities and filing deadlines uh we also have posted the Assessor's notice at the post office on the Assessor's bulletin board and at the town clerk's bulletin board at 60 Center Square uh the notice informs all taxpayers of the March 1st deadline uh to get their three ABC in their form of list and the 3abc is for tax exempt entities who own real estate and or personal property um if anyone needs any assistance they know that they can reach out to our office and if they need to request a form we can certainly send it by mail or email uh I'm continuously updating the Assessor's web page and I have added again more information um on it I'm working now at trying to get the in um updated because people like to pull that off of our website and submit it as soon as they can um but it does take a little while for us to get all of our forms updated so that's my next step and as you know you just signed off on the first motor vehicle um excise commitment um we received it on the 10th of January it is going to be mailed on on the 10th of February and they're due by the 12th of March and then just today I did receive from the state that we did get our final fy20 for equalized valuations and it was exactly what we approved back in June of this past year when we had the preliminary and we had the right to review and petition the state if we did not feel it was correct and the equalized valuations plays a big role in the allotment of aid for our public libraries the calculation of Chapter 70 funding uh reimbursement for school construction projects which is going to be a big thing for us as we're into building the new high school and it also is used in calculating the community's debt limit so I just wanted the board to be aware that it has been approved it was sent out to me um along along with myself the town manager received it so we'll be going into our next 2year cycle of um reviewing and approving preliminary eqs and then final eqs how many times are how many segments of excess tax bills go out generally about seven each year we do so the first one is the largest commitment uh so anyone who had a vehicle registered on January 1st will go out by the first week I'm sorry second weekend in January and then we'll have one March May July the last one usually comes when we receive the first commitment of the new year so you just catch up on anything new after the first one break the um you said the tax bills went out early yes the does that affect I I know the abatements are still favor does that affect when the tax bill is due for the taxpayer no the tax bills are always due on February 1st and this year febrary it's February 3rd because of BS and tax bills all right all right great thanks Diane you're welcome uh move on to proposed recommendations for fiscal 26 exemptions so I do have this on your screen and I don't know if the board is has had the opportunity actually I have a copy hard copy for each person if they would like um so because the governor adopted or we have new legislation as of August our veterans agent has reached out to us and is a proponent in increasing the amount that veterans receive in their annual exemptions and our big concern is as we're in the budgeting process for fiscal 26 we do need to try to determine where the Comfort level will be with how much we're going to increase the exemption if any and then I need to make sure that the town has the funding for any new changes so for the new local option which is a 25j uh I'm sorry 22j they can receive up to 100% um additional amount that an exemption so if you have a veteran who has a 10% or more disability they get a $400 exemption you have the right to say we want to fund this another 25% 50% 75 whatever the amount is and if you chose for 100% that $400 exemption would then be an $800 we also have 22 e which presently is $11,000 so if you did decide at 100% it has to be equally applied across all exemptions for veterans so it's a the potential 2,000 so if you're looking in the boxes where it's showing yellow presently the town's liability um is in Black anything extra we would have to make sure that we're raising an additional amount of money as the town is getting ready to set their budget we are going to have to make a decision soon um because then we're going to have to bring this before the town counc because they are our legislative bodies and they would have to endorse like how we brought um small personal property exemption before or um so I don't know if the board I'm not asking you for a decision but we did bring this up a couple of months ago and I do need this in the Forefront of your mind okay to what is 22e again please 22e is a veteran who has um 100% disability so these are veterans that fall into a certain price depending on what their um disability rating is so these are all dis disabled yes all disabled veterans and at the present time we only have veterans that fall under Clause 22 or 22e there are others there's 22 a b c which are all different um exemption uh amounts but at the present time we do not have anyone who falls under that and any of our widows of a veteran who um was either missing an action or passed due to a service connected disability receives a full exemption on their taxes so there would be no more applied yeah to that would you like me to put it on next month's yes agenda and we can discuss it further okay I will let the the might discuss a little bit in executive session also okay tonight okay next thing on our agenda I lost my agenda the proposed Town report sub Mission yeah and I don't know if anyone had the um opportunity to read I would say the key thing is the narrative um everything else is a requirement according to our town bylaws so is that from the town report yes I read it the only thing that stood out to me was when it says homes for s sale it says homes for sales oh and maybe you should just say homes for sale but that's the only thing good editing job once I see it I'll fix it did you look at this Marilyn already I missed the S though huh I said I missed his s though okay looks good okay um and it was second HS for yes I will make sure that that's corrected and this is due by the 17th of February into the town manager's office so that's why I kind of like submitted it ahead of time thank you I will get this in and then the only other thing that I we have for executive session I believe uh I'm sorry open session is we are going to need the board to go to the town offices where we have a notary we have two um Agricultural and one agricultural lean that needs to be signed and one 60 that's the new one uh one Forest management that needs to be signed so what I'm going to do is I'm going to be dropping it off I will check with Debbie which is where you have been going to get your notaries um I will check with her to just make sure that her availability is pretty typical and there's no time off and then these will be sitting there waiting for you and I will make sure that once they're signed come back to us we have their checks ready to send into the registry and both of these were approved by the board when we were approving all I already signed it yeah okay so so I will follow up with you as soon as I have some availability and that's it and that'll be this week or next week well by the time we get it to their office it'll get there probably late tomorrow so I'll check on the availability for next week and I will send you a reminder of when she's available and go from there all right thank you I believe that does it for Open Session make a motion to go into executive session to discuss motor vehicle excise and boat abatements uh some fiscal 25 exemption applications and some some abatement applications from ' 05 24 and 25 and an ATV update uh and we will return to record our votes take a roll call vote Hayden Smith yes Marilyn gini yes Martin Gruden yes