Okay. Good evening everyone. Um, welcome to the budget and finance committee. Uh today is Monday, October 27th, 2025 and it is approximately 7:04 p.m. This
meeting is being conducted as a virtual meeting with proceedings broadcasted on the media outlets provided which is the Zoom link um that was given along with our Facebook uh Lawrence City Council page and our YouTube Laurens City
Council page. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2022, this meeting of budget and finance committees being conducted via remote participation. A reminder that persons who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may use any of
the following um access locations that I have just previously mentioned. today. Uh members joining us is our city councelor from district B, Wendy Lone, and our city councelor at large and city council president, Joavanni Rodriguez.
Um minutes for council approval I have is uh dated July 7th of 2025 through September 9th. Is it through? Um, no. July 7th of 2025, September 9th of 2025,
and September 22nd of 2025. Um, can I get a motion to approve? >> So move. >> So move. >> Second. >> Okay. Okay. Um, can I get a roll? Uh, who's doing roll call? Should I say all
those in favor? We don't have a minute. >> You you do the roll call. All right. So, um, Wendy Lon, Councelor Lone, >> present. >> No, it's a yes or no.
>> Oh, I thought you were >> No, no. This for a motion to approve the minutes. >> Oh, yes. >> So, this is for motion to approve minutes. >> My apologies, Madam Chair. Yes. >> All right. Council President Rodriguez.
>> Yes. >> And I vote yes. Uh, motion carries. Um, I do not have I don't see that we have Rosa Shepard with us. So, I'm going to
go straight to the last item on the agenda, which is item 421-25, which is the fisc year 2026 property tax classification public hearing. We do have um our chief assessor, Alexi Vega,
who has a presentation for us. Um so, Alexi uh or Mr. Vega, you have the floor. Please proceed and and let us know if you um are able to share your screen. Let me see.
>> Thank you, counselors. Um I'll present to you the FY2026 uh tax classification. But first, I want to let you know I am joined by our assessor, Maria Howerin, and also Amy Valdez. And I want to use this
opportunity to thank them for the hard work they've done throughout the year. Uh, this presentation will show you what we've been doing throughout the calendar year 2025. So, I'll share my screen now. We are on. Okay. Can everybody see my screen?
>> Yes. Well, I could. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, that's good. We'll continue. >> Okay. So this packet uh represents uh what the uh values and the city alliance um have done um and the levy uh that was
actually uh adopted or um used to uh balance the budget back in June. Uh this presentation must be conducted in order for us to set a tax rate. The DR monitors every single municipality's classification hearing. This is just the
first step. This is the budget and finance subcommittee. What we're going to ask you tonight is to refer this to the full council to order public hearing that we might have it scheduled for sometime in November. Uh so this is just the beginning step uh before we order
the public hearing. So tonight, the city council we're going to ask is for the councilors to adopt a tax factor which uh shifts the tax burden of the $92 million that we raise in property taxes to the commercial industrial and personal property. Um in
order to do that, the city councilors must uh vote on a tax factor. We'll do that. We can do it tonight or we can just send it up to the full council with a without a a recommendation and and order the public hearing. But then at the public hearing we would ask you to
adopt the factor and you'll see that in the later slides of the presentation. The maximum you can shift the tax burden is 1.75. That means that we'll take whatever the share is on the commercial industrial personal property which is roughly about 19%. Multiply that 1.75 to
that percentage and that will in turn increase the commercial industrial personal property to roughly around 32%. uh this does not increase additional taxes. It's going to be the amount that the uh councilors uh saw in the budget
back in June. So for fiscal year 2026, we had to use all of the sales that transpired in the city of Lawrence in calendar year 2024. What this represented was an increase of 7% throughout the entire real estate and
personal property. Our real estate and personal property total valuation is $ 8.9 billion. This is a 7% increase over last year's $ 8.4 billion. This is record high for the city of Lawrence and I've been doing this for over 26 years.
So these numbers are are representing uh a very healthy real estate market not just in the city of Lawrence but in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The increase by class uh that we break down for the state and it's required is the residential 7.1% commercial increase
4.6% 6% industrial 4.1% personal property 12.7% and I I have to state that the personal properties uh increase is attributable to the um utility companies combo uh
Comcast um New England Electric um Columbia Gas things of that nature. Those are the major uh improvements we saw and they represented a healthy personal property uh addition to their new equipment. The average single family home in the city of Lawrence for fiscal
year 2026 is 479,200, marking a 6.5% increase over last year's 450,100 and a sustainable rise from the 2024 of 405,800. Uh the medium sale price for the city of
Lawrence continues to rise in FY26 and this trend reflects what's happening in the future. Uh for FY27, we're going to be using 2025 sales. And I have to tell you now that those numbers have not stabilized yet. They continue to
increase. So we're going to see another increase in values next year. Uh this slide represent a snapshot over the last three years on the property values from FY24 to 26. And you can see the residential class increase uh in 24
10.5% 25 10.2% 2% I'll just indicate it here. The residential value increased 7.1% this uh fiscal year. Commercial increase 4.6 industrial again 4.1 personal property 12.7 and the overall valuation for the city of Lawrence
continues to uh increase year-over-year 7.6 and 24 8.4 and 25 and 8.9 almost $9 billion in taxable value in the city of Lawrence. Um the slide uh the levy in
the bottom represents what the tax levy the amount of money we raise through taxation year-over-year. So 24 was 84 million, 25 was 88 million and this fiscal year is 92 million. The state allows us to raise um
proposition 2 and a half uh in this year. uh the new uh proposition and I have allowable the maximum allowable by by law is $2.5 million and addition to that the state allows us to raise new growth. Uh new growth is basically the
new construction new permits that have been issued additions to folks properties and um new personal property accounts and existing property uh personal property accounts that purchase new equipment. Uh so we have to value those year uh every year and report
those numbers to the state uh which uh we're projecting uh the state's reviewing our numbers as well as many other communities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We're projecting that the new growth number is eight $1.8 million. Um as you recall when we did the budget
back in June, I've been asked to estimate what the new growth would be, but that number is uh I estimate that number back in like February. way in the beginning of the calendar year. So, we don't know what's really out there. So, we're very conservative with that number. We projected the new growth
number to be $1.2 million and it came in a lot higher at 1.8 uh million, which is very very good for the community uh and our budgeting uh moving forward. Here are project here are our projections for the last 10 years uh in
our stats. So, new growth back in 2017 uh 1.8 8 million, 1.7 million, and so on and so forth. As you can see, around 2020, 2021, and 2022, that number
represents pretty much a bulk of Columbia gas. So, they replace a ton of equipment, and they continue to do that now, but not at that uh extreme. So, uh the 1.8 8 million represents again all the permitting that was issued
throughout the calendar year of 2024 um and all the new uh personal property equipment that was reported to the assessor's office uh by the utility companies u so the city of Lawrence uh chooses to adopt a factor and that splits the tax
rate if the community of Lawrence didn't uh split the rates we would have a single rate and that number would be $1025 5 cents uh which would be a significant increase to the residential homeowners in the city of Lawrence. Our largest class of prop properties are our
single family homes. So thankfully we do have a split rate since its inception uh in the 80s. Slide number nine shows how the city councilors have voted over the years. And as you can see in this column here,
the counselors uh chose the maximum factor uh which helped uh release the burden from the residential class of homeowners and that includes the singles, the condos, the twos, the threes and apartment complexes. So, if the counselors were to choose a factor
of 1.75, the new rate will go down uh to $8.58 for residential and $17.93 for commercial. Um, and you'll see that in the latest slides what this impact would be for each class of property.
This is what I was talking about earlier about the levy limit uh and how the states calculates the proposition two and a half. So basically they use last year's levy limit um and they bring it down to what we would estimate for 2026 levy limit plus new growth. So last
year's levy limit was $11 million. Uh you know over the years we never raised to the levy limit. Uh we very um we're very uh very good at not raising to the maximum. Uh so giving homeowners a a
very significant tax breaks. We talked about earlier before the presentation started how other communities pay a lot higher tax uh burden. Uh so the state uh allows us to use uh the amended new growth which is some properties that we
left off the tax roles during the actual presentation and we added them on. It was just a couple properties. We had a couple of exempt properties that added to the tax roles and some vacant lots. nothing of significant value, but we we did uh send them a tax bill for FY25.
We're allowed to use that as amended new growth. Our proposition 2 and a half again is 2 and a half over the levy limit, which came out to 2,500,000. And our projected new growth is 1,870. So by law, the city of Lawrence could
raise $105 million in this year's taxing capacity. However, this budget is balanced with a a levy amount of 92,119,316, which uh leaves you of excess levy capacity of $13.7 million. This is the
money that uh we've uh saved the taxpayers over the years. And you can see that number is very healthy. Uh and it's a very good thing that consulates have uh passed or adopted a budget without raising taxes to the maximum
allowed by law. Here you see the tax rate for the average single family homeowners over the last decade. And you'll see the tax bills for single family homeowners, which is our largest class of property. Uh in 2026, single family total $2
billion. There are 4,293 parcels of single family home. Uh I'd like to point out that the there was not much of an increase or nothing at all for single family homes. Although we had new construction, you have to take into
consideration the net. So single f some single families became condos, some single families came three families and vice versa. twos uh became threes, but the net overall after we did the adjustments and analysis and we provided to the state, the net z uh zeroed out to
um no increase in single family home production, but we did have um about half a dozen single family homes uh that were added to the roles. Again, you might have had a tragedy, you know, of a fire and that became that's no long
became a vacant lot. Uh so with that being said, the new uh average assessment for single family homes is 479,200 with the uh projection of the counselors uh choosing a factor 1.75. I'm not
recommending anything, but that's what's the trend. And just to give you a snapshot view, the average single family homeowners tax bill will uh finally reach $4,000. So it's $4,112. So the next six slides will show
represent uh what the factor would be at the maximum shift. I'm going to click each slide and what I want you to see is the tax-free is going to continue to increase because this shift right here uh will be the best
benefit for the commercial, industrial and personal property if you decide to go that route. As soon as I click another um factor, which will be the next slide, you'll see the tax rate go down and the single family homeowners and the residential tax actually as a
whole will start going down. So here you have a slide for the single family homeowner at $23 and the industrial at negative922. But pay attention to the industrial tax bill as a whole. It's $40,000 significant. So again, let's go to slide
171 and you'll see the tax rate start dropping and then you see the tax bill for single family homeowners condos and industrial commercial start rising. I'm going to keep clicking till we get
to 175. 175. This is the best benefit for the residential homeowners. So, a single family home will increase by $151. Condos will increase by $133.
Two families $286. Three families $310. Commercial will increase by $384. And industrial by $277. Again, this tax bill represents each tax bill as an average. Some of them are
going to go up, some of them are going to go down. But you can see the single family home uh pays 4,11 uh 112 and the condos pays 200 2371. Comparison the singles and twos it's
it's pretty pretty high. It's $1,600 that the twos pay more than the threes. Although this represents what the average assessment is and tax bill, it is still significantly higher. But the burden is shifted uh for this year on
pretty much the twos and threes that continue to skyrocket. U you can't buy a three family in the city of Lawrence for for you know less than a million dollars. And and that's remarkable. Here's a snapshot of all the three uh
classes of property from 1.75 to 1.75. And this is the average tax bill for residential uh single family homes. And this slide here represents the commercial uh part of the city. Uh this is almost uh the end of the presentation and you would see the uh
comparison to other municipalities for fiscal year 2025. There hasn't been a a community after I did this presentation that has a certification of the 2026 tax rate. So I use 2025 as a snapshot. And then you can see the city of Lawrence
has the lowest, one of the lowest in this comparison of $3,661 and the state average is $7,730. The tax classification budget and timeline. So this is the beginning like as I mentioned uh we'll be before you
again. So we're asking the counselors and the budget and finance committee to send this up to the full council so that we can order a public hearing. We're projecting that uh and I met with the city clerk Alen Bernell uh to have the um public hearing uh November 18th. This
gives us enough time to do a public notice on the city's website and hold a hearing so that we can get our tax recap to the DR for certification and have our third quarter actual tax bills mailed out prior to January 1.
The last slide is our contact information. If folks have any questions about this slide or their property values or if they have any questions about their senior veterans exemptions, you can feel free to call us at 978-6203190. Again, I'm Representative Hit this evening with our other two assessors,
Maria Howerin and Amy Valdez. Uh we can walk you uh through your assessments, your exemptions, um and any questions you might have uh before the public hearing. and we'll be posting this on the city's website. And that concludes our presentation for this evening.
>> Okay, >> let me um stop sharing my slide. >> Okay, council, any questions, discussions? >> Quick question uh on the factors. >> Rodriguez, you have the floor.
>> Yeah. uh usually we we tend to adopt uh the uh factor 1.7 1.75 uh for the last I believe maybe eight eight out of the last 10 years we have adopt that factor but this year I can
see that it it will it will make u previous year and other years uh the balance it wasn't was not quite there but on this year I see that the commercial compared to The residential is very balanced well on the 175 factor.
Is that's the same impression that that the department have? >> Is that a question for me? >> Yeah. I mean the is that an impression? I mean I feel like this year the the 1.75 factor will make
>> a lot more sense compared to previous years. >> Correct council. A good observation. That is correct. the values for the commercial did not increase over the last uh prior year. So this is pretty much a pretty um reasonable rate uh for
the commercial industrial taxpayers in the city of Lawrence. >> Okay. Um so the total amount of taxation that we have you say that it was uh was not quite as we expected or what we
discussed and uh during the budget discussion. Can you >> correct some more on that? >> Yes you you you are correct. What we discussed in the budget uh in June was raising last year's levy which was in slide I believe it's going to be in
slide six slide number five of the presentation. Last year's levy was 88,382,893 plus the new growth uh plus proposition 2 and a half and new growth increase the levy to 92,119
316. So it's 2 and a half which is $2.5 million plus the 1.2 brings you to the 92119 316. >> So it's about 3.7 total. >> Correct. Uh >> so what is and what is it that we uh what is it that we actually taxing? The
actual number >> that's the that's the number that we're taxing. So it's roughly 4.2%. >> 4.2%. >> Correct. And that represents just the $1.2 2 million. >> Okay. The number that we were discussing back
then on June, it was about 3.58%. >> Yeah. Um I believe there was something that with the overlay account uh if I recall correctly um that is for the overlay iss for as you know exemptions for seniors and veterans and any
overvaluation uh that we uh um appeals that we have that we can abate that wasn't taken into consideration during the levy processing uh calculation. Uh so that is added here and that brings it up to 4.2 2 million.
>> How come? Because we always have like half a million dollars in there. >> Correct. There is a there's roughly about a half a million dollars. We average about $580,000 in the overway count. I believe this year's recap is hovering around 500,000. >> Interesting.
We never leave that behind. We always have that because that's extremely important for the seniors and also for that uh for any property that is overvalued. >> Correct. for the abatement process that by the way the abatement process
take place all in in February >> every year right >> correct the the after the actual bills go out January 1st taxpayers have 30 days to file their appeal uh with the assessor's office and again thank you for bringing that up because u you know
this is the taxpayers's chance because we do a mass appraisal on all the properties there's over 14,000 pieces of property we have about three appraisers that go on the field plus the office that administers um exemptions, abatements. Um so this will give the
taxpayers when the bills are issued to appeal or take a look at the value and if they have any questions to call the assessor's office and we we uh receive those forms January 1st to February 1st. Folks have those 30 days, that window um to file their appeal and we review each
one of them. we have 90 days to get back to the taxpayer and the overlay account is what we use to uh make sure that um you know we can do these adjustments not just for the seniors and veterans but for any adjustments on overvaluation
>> that's kind of like you know I mean uh I'm I'm glad that you're bringing this up because during the budget discussion uh I don't like to play Elatri Raton I don't like to play catching up uh because I mean I never that was never
brought up to us. Obviously you were not part of the discussion uh during that time and it's not your fault at all. Uh but I mean uh I always thought that we have that half a million dollars because that we need to raise that now going into November and not be able
to kind of like have a a justification on that. That's kind of disappointing. Um, interesting. So, I definitely would like to see a good explanation as to what happened. Uh, if that's the case, kind of like,
you know, it's it's it's not it's not a good thing. Uh, and and I mean, we we deserve some type of explanation from uh from the CAFO. >> I can explain. I can explain, counselor.
Oh. Oh, you're there. Okay, great. Awesome. >> Um, usually that's an allowance for abatement and exemptions. So, we don't we don't anticipate to get that money. So, basically the way we report it is we report the net which is the 92 million
and then we take an allowance for the abayments and exemptions that we anticipate that we will not collect in taxes. So when we report in the budget we we always do the net of the two which is the 92 and then we assume at the time of the budget the 575 and that's the
3.58 number that you are recalling right now. >> Well the actual numbers are 4 something 4.1 4.2 Right. So that um that is the full amount.
The 575 that we estimated during the budget time was the allowance for abatement exemptions which means kind of like uncollectible taxes that we assume that either it's going to be given out to either abatements or exemptions veterans elderly and so forth. So that's
how we report it. uh we assume that uh we're not going to get a certain amount of taxes because of those abatements and exemptions. So therefore, we deduct it from the total uh amount to be levied. >> But you know that u we're going to have some type of allowance, some type of
money that is going out, >> right? So that's that's >> every year we know that like >> Right. So it's not that it's being excluded or it wasn't clear. It's the way we reported in the budget. we assume that we're not going to get 100% of all the taxes because of abatement and
exemptions. So we have an allowance uh which we try to do 500 575 um,000 every year. So that's what that is. So we report when we do the budget we actually do the net which is the 92 million minus the 575 which is what we assume in
during the budget and that gave us the 91.5 which is what we use for um the budget breakdown between property taxes real and uh personal. So that that is a 3.58 which is the net number. I don't know if you're if I'm making myself
>> I am I am following of course. >> Yeah. But the 10 is now we need to explain to the people that it was not 3.58 that is now 4.2. So So >> you know it's not it's not that it was left out. It's the way we always do. We
always report the net. We always report the net of the two. previous year. I don't remember how that type of issue at least some year pass. >> Yeah, I I can I can um show you the how
the numbers work. >> Okay. Well, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by all means. No problem whatsoever. So, we I want to I want to kind of like know because I mean obviously this year around is like now we're talking about 4.2 to with that
number wasn't wasn't brought up during the discussion of the budget. It was always 3.58 and and and now that is on the city council's end. It's it's more like uh you you know what I mean? That's kind of like you know a discussion that
should be brought up uh during during the uh during the budget discussion in June. So, we don't raise, just so you know, we don't really raise the um the when we do the budget for the allowance for
abatement exemptions. That is not an amount we anticipate to receive because we're actually going to um we assume we're not we're not getting that. It's kind of in a regular um report. It's kind of like bad debt.
We're not going to collect the bad debt. So, you always have a number there. in our case for our case will be abatements that we give based on um applications that people fill out and also the uh exemptions that we give mainly veterans
and uh blind and uh elderly. So that's what we do. we reported as a net because we we don't anticipate we're going to get 100% of the taxes >> understood understo all right I going to I going to you know I going to have a
couple of more questions uh but as as of now I I let all the council um discuss and I just follow >> okay so um any other questions from any other
counselor in regards to this item >> hearing none. Um can I get a motion uh for item 42125? the motion uh based on the schedule that it was. >> Hello. >> He's still there, but there's no
>> Oh, okay. I didn't know if it was just on my end. Counselor. >> Yes. No. >> Oh, I didn't we didn't get to hear you were cut off. >> Okay. So I was saying that based on the recommendation on the presentation
uh we have to have a public hearing for this item. Uh so we'll what what I said just following the recommendation I'll um I'll send this item I'll make a motion to send this item to the full council as a committee report to a public hearing.
>> Second. >> Okay. Um roll call. Um, councelor Lon, >> yes. Councelor Rodriguez, >> yes. >> And I vote in the affirmative. Um,
motion carries. Um, so we'll be seeing this item for the next meeting uh with city coun uh for the Lauren City Council uh this coming Tuesday. Uh, counselors, I do not see Miss
Shepard in line online. Um, I just wanted to make sure that as I'm saying her name, maybe I don't believe I've uh seen her come into this meeting. >> Um,
should we take all three items as a block and table this or do we leave it as is and it's considered tabled? you you you choose to either way work to be honest with you, but I mean we can just table it to just to be safe.
>> Okay. So, um can I get a a recommended motion to table uh the following items as a block? It would be 41825 which is the authorization to expend $45,377 um support and incentive grant
um in addition to the 41925 item which is authorization to expend $23,846 fisc year 23 SOB grants address verification program and lastly the 420-25
item which is the authorization to expend $23,846 fiscal year 2024 SOB grant address verification program. >> Can I get a motion? >> I'll make I'll make that motion.
>> Okay. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Uh roll call. Councelor Rodriguez, >> yes. >> Councelor Lone, >> yes. >> And I vote in the affirmative. Uh, this motion carries. Um, is there any items
that needs to be unt. All right. Hearing none. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Councelor Lone.
>> Yes. Councelor Rodriguez. >> Yes. >> And I vote in the affirmative. Good. Good night, guys. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Bye >> bye.