It is Wednesday, October 1st at 5:33 p.m. in conference room 2. The meeting for the board of assessors is now in session. Call the order. John Kaine here. Dean Hatchic here. Bill Brown here. Randall Austin here.
Uh, first on the agenda is public comment. Is there any public comment? I do not see anybody. Okay. Next on the agenda is to review the minutes of August 25th, 2025. Can I get a motion to approve those
minutes? I make a motion to approve the minutes of August 2525. I'll second the motion. All in favor? Do we have to do a roll call vote? We're supposed to. Okay. Yeah, we might as well just Okay,
so roll call vote. John Kane, yes. Dean Ratchick, yes. Bill Brown, abstain. Perfect. You want to sign these as we go or sign them? Yes. Yeah, please. All right. And new business. Can I get a motion to approve the August motor
vehicle abatements? I'll make a motion to approve the motor vehicle abatements for what month? Um, August. Yeah, August. Roll Jack Kane. Yes. Ranch. Yes. Can I get a motion to approve the
partial release of chapter 61A for 113 Mortining Road? I'll make a motion to release the part or the partial release of chapter 61A for 113 Mort Vining Road.
Brown. Second. Roll callo. John Kaine. Yes. Dean Harachic. Yes. Bill Brown. Yes. This one. Can I get a motion to approve the sewer betterment payment for 27 Lake View Street?
I make a motion to approve the sewer betterment payment for 27 Lake View Street. Bill Brown seconds. Roll call vote. John Kaine, yes. Dean Heric, yes. Bill Brown, yes. False.
Can I get a motion to approve the sewer betterment payment for 42 Beach Road? I make a motion to approve the sewer betterment payment for 42 Beach Road. Second that. Bill Brown. Roll call vote. John Kaine, yes. Dean
Heric, yes. Bill Brown, yes. Can I get a motion to approve the sewer betterment payment for 116 Congam? I make a motion to approve the sewer betterment payment for 116 Comet uh Kangaman Road. Sorry.
Bill Brown seconds. Roll call vote. John Kane, yes. Dean Hatch, yes. Bill Brown, yes. Thank you. Can I get a motion to approve the invoice for the Mass Assessors Association, Massachusetts Association
of Assessing Officers for the amount of $100. I'll make a motion to approve the invoice to the Mass Association of Assessing Officers uh in amount of $100. Bill Brown seconds.
Roll call vote. John Kaine, yes. Dean Heric, yes. Bill Brown, yes. I have a motion to approve the invoice for the Massachusetts Association of Assessing Officers for the amount of $100 in addition to the previous.
Okay. I'll make a motion to for the invoice of the Mass Association of Assessor's Office for an amount of $100 and these are for the the class classes and Kim
clerks meeting seconds. Uh oh, John Kane. Yes. Dean Roach. Bill Brown. Yes. This illustrated board not the one I was start thinking about. Can I get a motion to approve the invoice for the Hampton Hampshire
County's Assessors Association for the amount of $180? Right. Yep. I'll make a motion to approve in the amount of $180 for the Hampton Hampshire counties. No, I think it was 60.
Oh, no. Sorry. No, sorry. You're right. I read that. I read her and not per member. Okay. So, sorry. It's for $60. So, it will be to approve the invoice for $60 for the Hampton Hampshire Countyy's Assessor Association. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve
in the amount of $60 the invoice for the Hampton County Assessors Association. Bill Brown seconds. Roll call vote. John Kaine. Yes. Hatchic. Yes. the bell. Yes.
So that that's in addition to the mass the MAO one that I was Right. That's our local Ham Hampshire County Association. That invoice is the one that I have to pull off of the the state website, right?
Which we haven't done yet, right? They will send you an email through Gateway. They will send you an invoice and then you give that invoice to us and we send the payment. So, I'm pretty sure they did send us those invoices. I got an email a while back, but I haven't been able to log in. So,
let me do that. We'll bring that up on the next Okay. meeting, but that that's in relation to that. That's that's the local one. There's the one for the state. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, can I get a motion to approve an invoice from WP Mason in the amount
of $755 for office supplies? I make a motion to approve the WBM Mason invoice for $755. 55 cents. Um for the WB Mason for office supplies.
Bill Brown second. Roll call vote. John Kane. Yes. Dean Ratchick. Yes. Bill Brown. Yes. And these are just for you to So that's what's left other than There's a couple of them.
Yeah, this is for stage. Okay, hold on. your hands. Yeah. No, that was just those are good. Can I get a motion to approve all statutories? I make a motion to review and sign all statutories.
Bill Brown seconds. Roll call vote. John Kaine, yes. Gina, yes. Bill Brown, yes. Perfect. These we have to sign. Yes. We're getting statuto exemptions. Veterans, blind, seniors. Mhm. Um, veterans, you have to have a
disability through the VA. 10 to 90% is a $400 uh amount. And there's a bunch of different ones up to a full exemption for veterans. For seniors, we've adopted uh the 41C where um it's a $1,000 amount
and um there's income and asset limits that they can't go over to qualify. And so we I think that everything has been pre-qualified and it wouldn't be before you if uh if it was something that that didn't qualify. Actually, I think they probably still
should you should still see those but deny them because they don't qualify because it was an officially submitted application. We just kind of leave it with no, right? Uh or else what would happen is it would be automatically deemed denied after 90 days. take no action after 90 days then
the application any application or most of the applications that we get even for abatement would be denied. Okay. And so in this case were there any that not that I'm aware of. Okay. Yeah. It'll it'll have a a sticky note
on it if there was a question. Okay. Cool. So we just have to go through and stamp all these. to work. Stamp them. So these ones you just stamp right? Yep.
Well, I've had Ellen do it upside down. Thought that counts. Yes, you got it. It's auto. No, those are so Yeah, it's doubled up.
Most are on the front. Good. Do we supply these forms for the most part or can people print them out? Both. Yeah. Because it is on our website in case they want to put it out themselves. It just doesn't come out in the bank and look pictures up.
Do you ever give an office update to the board like kind of what's going on in the office at this time of year? Um, not usually. Okay. I was just going to ask is there anything that you want to discuss or talk about or um issues that there's
just in other communities we you know the board's looking for an update on what's going on in the office and sort of where we are at. We were developing our own municipal calendar. There is one available on the DLS website.
But um what's going on at this time of year, we're preparing for classification. We're in a reval year, so there's a little extra work that we're doing. The consultant is handling a lot of it, but I'm trying to prepare things so that we can start running our statistical information and see where
the um you know the market is going. basically they're viewing the sales from 2024 two years removed from the fiscal year um to you know we fine-tune those sales and then basically what the difference between that and what we have them
assessed for is the market and then we make adjustments off of that but we have to get to a certain point where all of our data is entered in well not really to for that that analysis but as part of the classification we're going to get to a certain point where we're going to freeze our values so we have to have all
of our improvements from building permits that we've inspected and make sure that that's all entered into the database that should be there for fiscal 6. So that Roy had mentioned there's quite a bit of updating that needs to be done with the classification side of the
Yeah. like related to building permits and the right something came to the attention. So, we also are working with our department of revenue rep uh because it's a reval year as we're going through this classification process and they got a sample uh
a sample group of of homes from the previous assessor, I think. And so, they went out and did inspections and made observations about the property record cards that they had. And one of them led to a discovery on a certain street that
um you know the the appreciation doctors were inconsistent with what was really going on there. Yeah. Like they said they were all fair or poor and they were nowhere near they were all average or better.
And so that you know brought because it's a whole street it kind of brought that to the attention and they wanted to look into it further. When we did, we found um a lot of properties that had ratings below average um and
way more than you would think and average for for an average municipality average thing. Did we send a a larger data set to the state? Is it I had heard from that we had sent rather than like 2% of the data they needed somehow we gave them. Yeah,
I'm not sure whether it was Roy that um created the report and then sent it to them with his results. Uh I it's what we've been using to and working on. I know that it does have all properties, but then it also has a couple of different tabs on it and one of them is
the one that we're working on. Okay. Where it was just, you know, here are all the properties. The there was a dental property. pretty sure I'm sure if there was commercial in and added in or if that was part of it, but it was really the concern was more residential. And um
there were we ran the numbers and it was 43% of the properties and tenant were on that list that got reviewed for an increase in their depreciation factor. And it it it's twofold really. He and
and you know the girls helped me out with it and um I sort of ran through it a little with them and then let them go on their own or else you know there's so many 1350 that we had to go through basically. Yeah. And um
you know I'm saying part of it is exterior. So we're looking at the pictures. We used that and uh Google Earth also because they just did a driveby in July of 25 and so um you know if we had any question we couldn't tell from the pictures that we had in the
database or they weren't recent enough for us we could double check with Google Earth and then made the call on what we thought you know was this really in fair was this in poor or very poor condition and we had way more than they would imagine.
Um, did did you finish that review? We're nearly finished. We've got because that was part of Royy's um his consulting invoice, just so you guys know, was going through and reviewing quite a bit of these, you know, and using the staff in our office to get
these up to date. And that was probably the biggest issue that the state had with their with their looking through the folks or whatever was that there was the appreciation factors were off. So or just you know the the the
volume of these lower depreciation uh factors was just inconsistent with the average municipality I guess almost like when they entered the building permit data
they were expecting it to automatically increase the grade you know and it just never that that check I can't imagine how it happened because it is big. There's a lot I've saw a couple. So, we did our conversion recently from the old vision to the new vision and I
was wondering, hey, did that have something to do with an adjustment that we made because they were reviewing the values between the old system? Well, unfortunately, that was not the case. I think it just wasn't following up on a regular bas. Yeah. So the cyclical review every 10
years we're supposed to review every property and I do see notes from when it was being done but um apparently the observations weren't making it onto the property record card um and so we did a lot of changes and so I started
even looking for more stuff after that um just because of past experience I ran a few reports with uh or or just things that I discovered hey this has an override on it why does it have an override that means saying, "Hey, this is going to be the value no matter what the system determines."
And um there were quite a few and we looked at them and a lot were from like 21 and people that had for whatever reason and it was probably new construction at the time or something like that. The override was put on and then it was never reviewed again. And
so, um, you know, I have an example of one that I went and looked at and he was at 525 frozen there for 3 years and when it was taken off, well, it went on to over $900,000. And so, that was a big shock when he got his tax bill and started talking to his
bank about his escrow account. Mhm. And um I I went over and inspected and it really you know I I could find a slight reduction but not anything near you know that. And so uh the another observation I was talking to Cindy about is that's
that's new growth. All those overrides that we did that's new growth that was never captured because it it stuck and then these people have gotten a deal. Mhm. they're going to be mad and they're going to come in and we're going to have to have uh I I you know usually use the term comparable but as opposed to comparable I like to use similar because
when it's comparable that means I've gone through the whole thing and done all the pluses minuses and you have an attached garage and you know yeah exactly and so similar is sort of lets me off the hook but it's a similar size it's the same style it's a you know
close to the same year and then that's what I'm going to be trying to show people and Um, in some cases we're going to be sending a letter because it was such a dramatic increase that I don't want to blindside anybody because we wait until they get their bill.
So we have we saw this $400,000. Yeah. Increase. Yeah. So you don't want to blind somebody. I don't know. You know, a lot of those, at least the ones that were on the override, they've been getting a deal, you know, and so we can't
we can't go back and get those past dollars. We just have to fix it going forward. And hopefully most people understand. And if not, and they want to apply for an abatement or take us to ATB, then we're just going to have to, you know, defend our values and show, you know, be
pretty obvious. They might throw him a small bone or something like that at ATV, but for the most part, they're not going to What volume of these these increases do you think we're going to see of these huge, let's say, you know, double digit percent increase? Um, I don't know. And so I'm was kind of
waiting till we're done and I have a report that I ran and I can run the same report and then compare the two and see because I was very interested to see how much value we're adding because it was you know any idea what an average increase was maybe 50,000
50 up to 50. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cuz we saw some more than that and some were 20. And is that adjusting for the new market or is that just the grade? That's just fixing the grade. And some there were a bunch also that just didn't have a factor in there. Yeah.
And so once we put that in and then that also sometimes changed the value maybe not as much but um so this is being done before the reval right correct. Okay. This is being done for values to be 50,000 but then rebal and it could be
you know maybe 8% higher whatever. Yeah. It's definitely gonna well depending on what we do with our budget you know. Are we do you know anything about that? So far, are we hopefully close to the same budget that we had last year, or are we spending millions and millions of dollars more?
Yes. Yes. I I won't even speculate on the budget, but um yes, whatever you can whatever they can get for tax money, they're going to spend. So, that's kind of the same time almost we kind of need to play defense for the taxpayer because this has gone
for a while, you know, so people are going to be upset. Exactly. It's not fair. It wasn't fair. It just and that was the that was the thing that I kind of kept saying and all of us as we're going through are like oh look at this holy cow it's just not fair to the people that have an accurate value and
most are the people that sold recently you know about so all the new people yes their value is accurate and they might say oh well look at him and look at him and look at him well okay thank you cuz they're all going up but you're staying the same so that's is I wonder if there's a way to do
like a stepped increase or something if it's over a substantial amount of the you know say to phase it in if you're paying 10,000 a year for tax property tax right now and then because the grade change or you know whatever now you're up to say 50% more up to
15,000 you know is there could we find a area that hey that's a pretty big increase you know maybe have it a twoyear or even a one year yeah 50% of the that's something that we can entertain I think yeah Um,
and really we need to see where we're at first. Let me get that finished and then um we'll send out I I don't know if we can or if it's a violation of the open meeting law. If I sent you all maybe if I sent it to individually each one of you I could
send you kind of something about the results. As long as we don't discuss anything I mean as long as it's just data I don't see a problem with it. As long as we're not email Yeah. That's Yeah. Okay. And so then I can, you know, see what we're looking at and the, you know, the magnitude of it, I guess.
So that's kind that's where I'm wondering, you know, before that data is put into the system, not into the system, but hey, we have this much growth that we haven't been capitalizing on. And it's not growth. Not not growth, but unrealized gains, I guess. But some of it is like these ones that
have the override because of a new build and now we're bringing it up like that one that went, you know, from five to nine. That's new growth. And that was, you know, we could have captured a few years ago and we didn't, but we should be able to capture it now. Yeah. And that was one of the things I was looking at. I thought, um, even today, I
went over to Tall Pines and Silvergrass and, um, I had looked at our new growth and the average of it and I thought it was kind of low. And then when I was over there saying, you know, how could it not be, you know, over $300,000
with these new streets and every house is, you know, about $700,000. So, and and then that's not the only part of town that there's that type of uh new construction. So, um hopefully we can get a better handle on that. I'm not sure exactly what was
going on. And I thought, well, let me look at what's what was reported to do in the last couple years. Um, but that's one thing I'm big on keeping track of. And when we get out and we're doing the inspections ourselves, we'll keep our own spreadsheet on each inspection. I
used to, you know, uh, when I started, I sort of created this thing. Everything I'm doing, I want to know about it. So, here's all my permits and I list them in a spreadsheet and then keep track of them there as we go out. I've got a comments column and I'm here was the value before we went out. Now, here's the value after we left. And um it's
great for historical purposes, but also you capture your new growth there when you're keeping track of every little thing. And I'm not sure um what we were looking at for permits here. A lot of communities uh I'm finding are just looking at the building permits, which is fine, but I like to get the gas
permits and the electrical permits and the plumbing permits cuz sometimes you have a big renovation that's going on, but you have only one ethical contractor that does the right thing. And you come in for the rewire of the bathroom. And then when you're there, you see the entire, you know, thing that's going on.
And so you you if you have enough time with staff, it's better to get out and and check everything um as much as possible because that's all the nickels and dimes add up and that you do. So, we want to make sure that we're we're capturing that. Or, you know, it's
disappointing when you find out now I'm reviewing these sales from the previous year and this house was in poor condition and it was in a bad shape and now someone went and with no permits and they're bragging in the listing about everything is new and the new, you know,
water heater and the new this and the new that and kitchen and everything, you know, has been totally redone. and then well now we can't capture that as new growth or you know because it's just we're we're putting on well some of it I guess you can but you know you find out about it after the fact whereas you
could have been capturing it for you know as it went through process and everything and so that's a better way to go so I'm hoping that might have possibly had something uh um like I said I just thought that the new growth would be a little larger
especially our average over the last I think I went 10 years it was about $300,000. Uh and so usually I would say you know one year okay no this is seven or 800,000 cuz you were this big happened and so um
you know we're doing our best to review and I found a new few more things to uh um clean up. What kind of manpower do you need you know do you foresee needing um to go through that data? I think though to go through all the data
that that we really should review in the next probably well during the reval year and get every if we're going to do it you know have everything well one thing that I thought about you know the cyclical review and we can kind of verify that has been a driveby and
then hey it hasn't been making it under the card so it kind of was a myth. Um maybe we should think about uh having a project where we just have either hire an outside outfit or if we could do it internally. Uh but most likely for something this big, let's just do it
all. We're going to do all the residential. Everyone's it's instead of cyclical view, we're doing everyone as soon as we can and starting over because we want an even playing field. And what this has shown us is that there's uh a lot of potential for inaccuracy.
And so, you know, everyone I was talking about how, you know, here's the highest standard, but we're held up here because, you know, we're important because it's all the dollars and cents and how much people are going to be charged. So, um, if we're saying in a public meeting that we've had this big
uh situation, um, you know, it it it kind of is and we we want it to be fair and that's the whole goal of this office is to be fair and equitable. and we found a lot of stuff that kind of wasn't. And so maybe that's what we should think about for
next year's budget. Okay, we're going to put an extra 50 grand in for a data collection company to come in and and you know, hammer out as many of these as they can depending on the size of the place. Um, you know, that might be more or less. I know a guy that just started
out. He does really good work and um because he's starting out, he is at a low uh amount per inspection uh as opposed to going with a place um you know a more established place uh whose name I won't mention but it's more
like uh 60 to 70 you know 75 per inspection. And so, um, I started I saw that he was working on his own or starting his own thing. Had him come in and do a little work for me. And he does some good work. And so, I've been
endorsing him. And, um, that doesn't seem like a lot to me. What is it? 60. You're talking 60 to $75 per inspection. That doesn't seem like a lot to me. And that's why 35 is is Yeah. is much better. And if it's the same
quality. Wow. So that's half half the price. Yeah. And so I was in West Springfield and the previous assessor started uh or had made the observation that hey they thought the same thing that was going on and they started this whole data collection procedure. I started as a
data collector there and um then I you know got a position in Dalton but came back was the assistant assessor and finished the project as the principal assessor. Um, we got $450,000 in new growth. 90% of the property saw a change
and 10% stayed the same. 70% it was an increase of 20%. It was a decrease but uh overall the growth was 452 and um you know budget cost and pardon me that was in dome in West Springfield. Oh West drone.
Yeah. and the do is aware of the discrepancies that we have because they reached out, you know, to the the board to the um department and stuff. So, it's not that we don't know about it, you know. Well, now we know about it, but not that there wasn't an issue. So,
right, I I think that's going to be something that we need to think about finding funding for or personnel for because they're going to be they're going to come looking and we'll have a lot more say if we give them the data than if
they give us the data, you know. Right. Or if we propose that, hey, here's how we're going to fix it as opposed to waiting for them to tell us, well, this is what you better do. Yeah. So I think if we're ahead of it and we we can kind of set the standard of how we want to and so we're going to be reporting back to them too. Okay, yes, this is what we
we looked at the spreadsheet of all these properties and we made all these corrections and so they might you know uh if we're suggesting that they might you know it might have been the next thing out of their mouth to say okay because of this we're thinking that you should be a recommendation funding from the from the state to help
cover the cost of it too. Um, I don't know if there's I don't know if there's anything like that. If we have like ARPA funds or something like that, there could be. Um, but uh that's what I was saying, you know, that we got this x amount of growth out of it. So, whatever it costs
us, hopefully we're going to get that back and a little bit more um you know, by the end of it. So I think I mean if we could think about starting to get a plan in place to bring all this data up to the up to standard, you know.
Yeah. And we have to see well I we need to see what happens. I can let you know kind of initially what the results are. I'm going to be sharing that with uh Roy and the do or they're because they're going to be asking about and they're waiting for those results and then we'll see what
they say when um we we get back to them. Um and then because it could be as a revalure, it could be a recommendation and something that's in our work plan and gateway and then we'll have to report on it as we're going forward. So yes, we've you know that's what we decided that we're going to do. We're
going to just do the cyclical review or do an entire review of all the residential properties and um you know so we have a clean and you know clean start, brush dart and even playing field. I think especially with the the way the market has been up and down and
all over the place that if we can get all that data and say, "Hey, by 2027, you know, our all of our data was as accurate as it could possibly be." So then we can look back and say, "All right, that was that's where we were definitely at." And then going forward, you know, because how often do you get a
chance maybe to to do that to go through and just right clean and make, you know, it's going to increase people's taxes for sure, but at the same time, it's going to, you know, spread spread the burden the way designed to be spread, you know. So that's what it is. You increase the
value of the tax rate goes down unless you're spending $4 million more than you did the year before. Well, so well that's kind of my worry is that if we see that huge piggy bank that there's going to be spending, right? Well, um I'll try and talk to Nicole about that
and she should have a better handle as a don manager on on where they're at and how much, you know, because really the budget's already gone through and it was approved. Yeah. Um and so then just how much more is that going to shake out to be when we're looking at the numbers for our total budget and then the budget that we're
raising through the taxes. And so as long as that's not too far far from what we were raising before, the the tax rate is going to go down. And so that, you know, might if the tax rate goes down, then we might not hear from a lot of people. And so value went up, but
what they're paying compared to last year and this year, it's about the same. But that is beneficial for new growth in town because that was going to pay the high tax rate and the the new valuation. So, by lowering the tax rate, it'll it
helps the new growth stay kind of in line with with what what's being done already. You know, it gives you a reason to build because you're not you know, all the values aren't accurate, right? So, you're not some houses that are older that have been getting a deal for years. Well, yeah.
a lot of sales and as I'm just looking at the house and saying to myself, okay, just from this look, that's this, you know, this is how much that would go for in today's market. And a lot of them were a far cry from what was there.
And it was like, you know, 225, oh, that would go for 350 all day, you know, and there could be a bidding war where it goes for 375 because they have two or three people interested. So, and that's a substantial increase in the tax bill. You know, 16 bucks a thousand.
So, we're going to have to do some type of public statement. Um, so once you once we know what's Yeah. Once we Exactly. we got to, you know, see the outcome first and then prepare on the best way to proactively
address it with the public. We have channel 15 too that could possibly be used utilized. Well, it's just something that happened. Really? Blame it on the department. Probably it's been from what you've seen, it's been going on for a long long
time. Yeah, I could from what I saw. Yeah, because I was looking at certain things. You can go back historically to a certain extent uh electronically and then also with a paper folder. And so I went back and looking for years and years and it's 2001 and that it's been
that depreciation factor the whole time. And so so it could actually come back around and be comfortable again. Exactly. Most of the time and like I was explaining earlier about how it's twofold. You know, it's external, but
it's also the internal, you know, so I don't know what's going on from looking at the picture or looking at Google Earth from the curb. But, you know, I'm just going off of that because, you know, it's some of them that were with the VP very poor or just even fair. It's like, you know,
not, you know, it'd have to be pretty bad inside for me to to to get something that looks like this on the outside and and say, "Okay, this is the factor." Yeah. But really doesn't Yeah.
And so, um, you know, maybe we will have an active, uh, abatement season. And the best time, uh, you know, to address it might even be, and I did this last year, and it was
kind of suicidal, but at the same time as proactive and saying, you know what, I got nothing to hide. This is the time when you can do something about it. You think there's something wrong with their value, come on in. You know, let's see. you know, we're having a special meeting. You know, we'll explain
everything how it works. We'll look at your situation if we have to. We'll give you an abatement application and we'll come out and inspect and get our data right and then you'll have nothing to worry about. And if it's something that you don't understand through that process, you're going to find out how it works and then hopefully it's something
that we're in agreement on. So, would you mail out like, okay, here's your new assess value or Well, we'll have to do that anyway because it's a revalier year. So part of that is the public disclosure period when we uh are setting the tax rate. we
have our new values and because in the past uh that's when you did your changes in value every 3 years back in 1990s or whatever and early 2000 they started realizing that values were going along in the market too fast and then you're
doing too much of a you know it's making too much of an impact because you're doing a big increase and so they started with the interim valuation year valuation but um this is our revalure and in a revalure you have to do this public disclosure I think for at least 10 days where you're letting the public know, hey,
here's your new values, they're out. Go and look at them and if you have a problem, come and talk to us. So, we might get some people at that time, but usually it's now the impact hits them when they see the tax bill. And so, then they're going to want to come in and talk. And that's why it sounds suicidal and you might think it's not a good
idea. When you when you send that out to say, "Okay, here's your new value." Do you do you list what the old value was or Yes. And that's what we'll have on the counter. That would be good. That's good for everybody to say, "Hey, this is what you
were paying on and now this is what you're going to be paying on." And they can at least rationalize it. But we don't send that out, right? We say that they're published and you can go and look. You can go and look, but we're not sending a letter. We're not sending everyone there for value. Uh I think they might have even done
that in the past, maybe in some communities. I don't know. But it's more like now it's on you to look and if you're interested, yes. And if not, when you see your tax bill, then it's when you come and talk to me. But um yeah, we could do something like that. Like I said, sometime, you know, it's a
Wednesday night or whatever at the senior center. Come on in, talk to you, ask the assessor. That's what we did in Greenfield. And um we did have a few people come in, but a you know, it's mostly things that people don't understand um that they have the most questions
about. And it's just that and it the data. Is the data accurate? I guess or no? Well, let's get it accurate and then we'll do whatever we have to to um you know make it right or or right now I can affect your tax bill. everyone. Uh that's what I was saying in January. If we do this during the time when they can
apply for an abatement, you know, if we do it after, oh, here's this great assessor night. It's February 3rd. you know, that's after you put in and so yes, we did that on purpose so we could laugh at you when you came, you know,
and so it's better to, like I said, it's kind of suicide, uh, suicidal cuz, you know, you're asking everyone, everyone is mad at me, I want you to come to the same place at the same time. What would be the ideal time frame for that that meeting? I don't know. we'd have to look and see,
you know, talk to uh, you know, different meetings and stuff that are going on at that time and just figure out um, obviously not too early but maybe not too late because we want to have time for them to still Hey, when do the tax bill when do they have to be sent?
They have to arrive on or before January 1st for the third quarter, the first actual bill. Okay. So, it it would have to be like about Christmas time. Yeah. You could start advertising it then and then have the event like on the 10th right after you get or the Yeah. Okay. So they still have
time to come in and ask their questions and then when would the payments need to be filed by the by it's always 30 days after the first actual tax bill. So first or the third if it lands on a Saturday. Yeah. That's the absolute debt last.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's going to be a be a problem. not it's gonna be an event you know when this because regardless what you look at even with the reval year anyway and I think people are just more in tune with paying their taxes
where it's going to looking at their values seeing values going up you know they're ready for something everyone's aware of values going up and and so hopefully that part but it's when it it comes down to the dollars and
cents that it's costing you that um catches the people's attention. What's I think what's really going to catch the people's attention is that the appreciation, you know, that that factor that's Yeah. because you don't you don't even think about it and you're No, but it's true equity that everyone
just gained. If you're you know, you might not be a big uh uh real real estate guy, but you have your house and you just gained. That's true value. Yeah. You know, you can't pay your tax bill, get a second mortgage now. You got all this equity then, baby. Mhm. I never want to say that. That would be
so suicidal. But um you know, it is though. It's true. It's this great investment and you just gained all that, you know, uh 33% about 30% is probably the average over the last three years. Um and it's probably, you know, more than that. We're I think that we'll be
raising our values again because we're still seeing and you're entering all the deeds, uh stuff that's going for what they're asking for or more. More. Oh, it's always more. So, what kind of percent you talking? 30%. Well, in the previous community that I
was in in the last two years or in a two-year span, I raised the values 26 and a half% of the average single family value in total over the in two years in two years. In the first year, we were basically level funded with our budget and so the
tax rate went down $2.67 from 2232 to 1965. But the next year we had a new director of uh finance who saw that we had a lot of money excess levy capacity. So we're not you know spending all the tax dollars. We're not using all the tax
dollars that we have available to us which is was fine. And that's just, you know, there's different uh theories of how you, you know, you go about that, you know, and so, oh well, I want to tax up to every dollar that I can, but you do that on the, you know, in the backs
and the purses of everybody in town. So, it's great that you got every tax dollar if you don't need every tax dollar, then let's, you know, just to make it easier for everybody. And so, she increased the the budget by $4 million. Uh so it was
at 38 basically and went to 42 when I had increased the values by 10 and a half percent. And so then it was the double whammy and you' think okay 16 and a half uh went down 267 so 10 1/2 it's going down 175. Well, instead it went up
75 cents. And so that's when everybody came in to talk to me because they the previous year they paid about 2% more than they paid the previous year even though there was a big value jump. And um but then when it was increased their what they paid than they you know then
of course I had to bear the burden of both of those years in one year because that's all they know. The last time I looked at it was this now it's that. So that would happen the next year, right? If we set out these tax bills and
people are upset, but then we go to increase our levy and we but we find out we can increase our levy capacity and we go to spend that then the come up again, right? Is that um the the t the actual tax bill itself?
Yeah. Well, it's is that the tax rate will go up and so when the tax rate goes up their bill's going to go up if we have increased their value too. So that's what they got the double whammy whereas the year before I value so the double whammy per thousand change right
so basically your tax got increased twice exactly once based on yes the ex the the new value and then based on the new total bill per thousand. Yeah. And I did everything I could to to
not raise values again in that third year because um it's a lot. And that was driven just by the market. Yeah. Really? But you know, I had a lot of seniors on fixed incomes coming in and talking to me saying, you know, am I going to if it keeps going like this? I you know, what
am I going to do? But we haven't done that in Southwood. I'm sure that we have raised the values significantly in the last couple years, but we have followed that. Um but it's just Yeah, it's the nature of the bees. It's what's going on everywhere. So, it's not isolated to any part.
Wasn't But we've kept up with that. Yeah. Uh I I don't know. I haven't looked into that yet. I'd have to talk to Roy about it. I'm pretty sure that we have been. Yeah. Because we're going to have that because I was worried we were going to get that they had been undervalued for a
time period to grade, you know, and then they were going to and then potentially increase the levy. Now we have the triple whammy, you know. But we're also adding a lot of value. So hopefully because of that. Well, yeah. Right. Yeah.
But we're increasing the levy limit. If we don't, and that's a that's a whole key on how much of an impact this will have. Yeah. Is um how much are we spending this year compared to last? Yeah. And so if it's just, you know, a million, it's probably not that, you know, it's not a big deal. But if it's 4
million, I'll increase the budget by 10 and a.5%. And so that's that was significant when I also increased values. Our budget is 15 billion. Yeah. Which is pretty low. 10% compared to, you know, when I was dealing with the other community. We
were the third highest tax rate in the in the state when I got there. And we're still in the top five even when we went down to 1965. So, um, what are we sitting at now? Isn't it like 17 or no 15?
It's 15 73. No, some 15 between 15 and 16. 1567, I think it is. Or 1557. Okay. Oh, yeah. The tax rate. Yes. Yeah. So, that's the thing. It if the tax the values are going up.
Yeah. If the tax rate goes up to 1650, Yeah. you know, support option. Yeah, it was a terrible. But if we can keep the budget the same, then we add value, then we could potentially
lower the tax rate. Yeah, the tax rate is going to go down even though your value went up. And that's what I'm hoping is going to happen. So, the value how much more So, you get more but not maybe not excessively, right? Well, how much, you know, in the dollars and cents, how much more are you
paying last year than this year? And that's where the first year I didn't hear from anybody because I went up 16.5%. But the the So, how long will that take? That's two years. Uh, well, that was uh right. No, that was just in one year did that. In one year, I raised the value 16.5%
and it went down $2.67. And so because of that, okay, it raised your value a lot, but you paid, you know, just a little bit more than you did, you know, one or two% more than you did the previous year. But then the following year, the city accessed that value, right?
Well, what they did is they said, "No, I want I'm I'm going to spend this much more money." Yeah. So the tax rate instead of going down when I did the increase went up. So that's that's what I'm thinking. like this time around. Okay, the values go up, but they can manipulate somewhat.
Yeah. So, they realize that there's that much value added. We've brought everybody's values up. Are they much more? Is that what you're saying? Are they so that council or select forward will be like, oh, you know, now we you do this
and that. Yeah. Well, well, I mean, in in their defense, they're we're trying to do a bunch of road projects, you know, so and costs are going up. They want to add benefits to town employees, whatever they want to do. Yeah. There's always Yeah, it sure goes
up every year. The different things like argue the budget this year, you know, and discuss and cut and move things around and and take off wishlist items and whatnot. If there's more money to be spent, they're not going to leave it on the table. Yeah. Okay. Well, new growth is one
thing, but increasing your overall, you know, and that's what we need to know from the financial people is what is our strategy um for for how we handle the levy and and you know, excess levy capacity. So, if we if we're running right close
and I don't think when I looked at things we were we were not running right close to that levy ceiling all the time. I I'm pretty sure we're I thought we were pretty there. Okay. I I you know I'll have to look into it a little bit more. Mhm. And I will be I'm going to be creating a
PowerPoint presentation. Um and I usually look at the average single family value and try and do a comparison with other communities that are the same size either, you know, population or uh um budget-wise.
And so if there's any community that you think that we're close to, let me know what you think it is and I'll try and include that in the uh in the analysis. Did I ever show that to you? I could go and grab it from I've got one from the other community.
No, no, you I haven't seen that. So um are you still signing? Are you also okay? Um um so yeah, anyway, it's just a little bit of a comparison and a lot of it is based around that, but it also talks about the levy and uh and that type of
thing. So I'm going to have something similar. Okay. And then we'll see exactly where we're at. I just know that for years, right, there hasn't been this kind of, you know, increase in values and increase in just all across the board, right? you know, here and there, but because it's going
to be across the board, it's going to be I mean, that was even one of the things I was talking about the seniors on fixed incomes and I'm just doing my business as usual. I'm doing everything the exact same way I did. But I because of the way the numbers are working and I have to increase the values this much. I've
never increase the value that much that quickly and any, you know, at any time in my career. I almost feel like I shouldn't be able to raise someone's value that much, you know, and that time just like you're saying, well, let's fave it in somehow, you know, and that would be, you know,
we'd have to talk to the Department of Revenue about, you know, what our options are for that and if they would allow that or just No. Okay, this is it. And um yeah, cuz but if it's going be a significant impact. If we have a responsible budget
and we have new growth, the tax rate can come down and then that might actually benefit some of these people who are on fixed incomes who have lived in a smaller house that were hopefully unaffected, you know. Exactly. So that's really where it's going to uh
have the greatest benefit I think to the people that were accurate. Yeah. You know what I mean? Exactly. They're not bearing they're not seeing that same increase that everyone else is, you know? Well, not everyone else, but a certain percentage of people are seeing. And so then when the tax rate goes down,
it's just making it easier for them. So the people who have been their data is accurate, they're not going to see much of an increase other than market value increase. Correct. They could even potentially see a decrease if the tax rate comes down. Yeah. They'll see a decrease in what
they're paying overall. Yeah. If we have value add and so so it'll be up to the select board. So yeah, even though these other people might have been getting a break, now the people that have been bearing the burden of that break are going to it's going to kind of go swim the other way for a little while. Mhm.
Because they're not going to see finally everything's going to catch up and that's just going to make it easier for them because they're staying the same. And that's why I think it's important if we're if we're doing it in that, you know, under those guidelines is, hey, we're going to make it across the board fair and equitable for everybody, then that's where you need to do a full, you
know, property. Absolutely. Right. and and that might be, you know, the biggest thing uh for public confidence because we're talking about it again. I don't know how many people go and listen to the whole meeting, but there's going to be some that do and they will talk.
Oh, yeah. For sure. So, yeah, they want us I'd like to just get it out there and let people know, you know, I'm independent taxpayer of anything. So, I want everyone to be on board with it and yeah, you know, know what's going on. I think you know transparent I think is overused
and I think yes I want to be transparent but to a certain extent it's an ideal it's not a law you know what I mean and to a certain extent I I feel like I just know you have to trust that this is going on and it's happening the way it should and as a property owner you'd have to understand that you have some
responsibility to understand when why and where you're paying right exactly responsible for the the value the assessor's office and the homeowner and so yeah there's two people respons responsible and it's up to them. Okay. And then that's why all these people
never talked to us because they didn't have a problem with the low that they had. Yeah. Well, exactly. Some people will come in and I've had it happen before very rarely, maybe only once or twice, but hey, my value is too low. You better come out here because this is worth a lot more than that and I want, you know, it's like a prestige
thing. I'd say most of his persons. I was like, okay. You know, and you know, they were kind of right. understand how property tax work. Yeah, we need some of those people. Yeah, I just think that's something that we need to definitely get ahead of and
understand that it's we'll have the results uh next week because we'll be finished by with the rest of the data entry standpoint and Cindy because she's old. Oh, so so by next meeting we'll be able to kind of discuss where Yeah. We'll have, you know, some numbers
to look at ahead of us. Yeah. Good thing we can do this uh, you know, like the before and after and look at people that had a larger increase and um, you know, the average increase and and stuff like that on those affected properties to get a better idea what the
results of this action. [Music] And then just from doing that the outlier properties I guess if you will we'll have an idea of kind of the the average discret let's see you know if oh yeah we could do stuff like that yeah
once we have all the information we take a bunch of numbers and and kind of look at at that yeah you know this is the average well you do the top 10 10% or top 20% and then leave the middle ground and then yeah people that aren't really affect it.
Well, that's why I'm think, you know, we give people, we give businesses plans, you know, tiffs and whatnot to come to town. I think there's going to be a reason for us to keep people in town somehow if their values are going up, you know, $400,000. I know that's kind of an outlier. And
they were getting a deal, but to someone who Well, anyone that that is happening to, I'm proposing that we send a letter. I want to send a letter to them. That's you know, this is my number. Come and talk to me about it. Yeah. Or, you know, either in person or on the
phone, I'll explain to you what happened. I'm sure there's a way we can make an agreement to step the grade change, you know, or something like that without having to even get. Well, part of it is is that I think most people are going to be in agreement. Well, yeah, I knew my value is kind of low. Yeah.
And so, um, you know, there might be I mean, they've been writing, you know, technically they, let's say they're riding it for three to five years, right? Or something like that, right? where they didn't say anything. Yeah. And so they could have been paying another $5,000 a year or something like that.
1520$20,000 that should have been So that there is your I mean that's part of our argument is that you know I know it's tough for you. I know it's tough for you right now, but you know if you were saving your pennies for all the years that you were getting a break and really you were yes it went
up this much. Well guess what? Because that's how much you were undervalued. I think the the problem is people just don't understand why their property tax is what it is. Yeah. You know, I think they just say, you know, a lot because a lot of people they have mortgages, it's just rolled into
the mortgage payment, they get the bill, they like I don't pay it. It's through my escro account like, oh jeez, you know, and then I and I don't even think about it until it goes up and your escro doesn't cover it. You see how you know that hasn't quite happened or it goes up and you know, I don't do a darn thing to my
house. It's exactly the same as it was last year. How can you raise my value? Yeah, they don't understand that. Well, it does. I don't have to come over to raise your value because I'm looking at mass at all of the ranches and you are a ranch and so whatever the ranches went up that sold, you're going up that much,
too. But I think with everything, it's important to do it small steps, right? And then you don't have a problem. You know, everyone's saying, "Okay, yep, we expect it to go up, but that hasn't been the norm." So I think that's part of, you know, setting up this office to to
have those systems in place, which is, hey, this is just how it how it happens, you know. So we're getting these little step increases. We have some some discounts for seniors and and veterans. Do we know what percentage of the the seniors apply for the for the discount? Is it is it half
or is it Well, most patients it it eliminates a lot of people that might everyone taxes for all my whole life. You know, I got a break now. Okay, but if you have, you know, 500,000 in the bank and in place at the Kate, you know, you don't
qualify, right? But then that's why I'm very serious about it because if you do qualify and you can't make more than X amount or have more than $55,000 in the bank, you need it. And so I don't want to find out we did,
dude. It's already happened. Woman comes in. Jessica the collector calls. Hey, I'm sending this one. you know, she's crying and, you know, just so you know, and she's 77 years old and is worried about losing her house and she's doing the senior tax work off, but she wasn't
applying for the senior tax abatement. And so, that was one thing that also that I corrected since I've been here. Um, usually you get an exemption and you can get the one that gives you the greatest benefit. Well, the senior tax work off is not uh an exemption cuz you're working for it. So, if you get it
for free, we're only going to give you one thing for free. he will give you the one that gives you the best benefit. But if you're working, then that, you know, that's not that's something that you decided to do and, you know, it doesn't get included. And so now she's going to be able at 77 and who is still working
at 77 um you know to to to get by um never knew about this 77. And so for seven years, I'm pretty sure that she would have qualified and could have gotten a thousand off every year as well as a senior tax work. she's doing that
because she needs the the break and so we have her applying. Actually, I had to call her and see if she's uh It's those kinds of people that I worry about getting a yes 30% increase in their tax bill. you know, the people that are like, "Yeah, you were getting a deal, but you didn't
know because you couldn't afford the deal as it was, never mind the actual, you know, and so yeah, we'll have to see what the Department of Revenue says on that and uh, you know, maybe we can we'll tell them to apply for an a payment and then when it comes we can grant
something that way because we know that they were affected." Um and then you know basically through that I know people were um unaware of the ability for the elderly rate for water and sewer. So we had advertised on the
town crier and the next meeting after that we had 30 applications where we usually have one or two and so so I hate to say it but you know maybe we should advertise that if you're a senior you may qualify for a tax property tax reduction or a veteran you
know I'm just going to make but to get that stuff all incorporated into the while we're doing this reval make sure everybody knows well I was talking with uh Lisa in the senior center and I am doing a talk on
the 15th about exemptions at 11:30. So they have a lunchon and then I've been advertised as a guest speaker and I'm going to talk about it and I have a PowerPoint presentation. We've just been going through and verifying the amounts that we had cuz they really didn't have anything written down. It was like, "Yeah, well, this is
how much can't go over this for income." And then we change it every year, but I'd like to have it documented. And so, we verified exactly when we started it, what we have adopted, and when we adopted it. And so, it was an increase, and it was from 2001. So, we had to know
the cost of living adjustment. Who sets those rates? Um, the the Department of Revenue. Okay. So, there's a social security deduction amount and a cost of living adjustment that happens. They used to call it a CPI, consumer price index. But um we had
to go back and I found out which I had already back to like 2013 where we had to get all the way down to 2001 because that was when we originally adopted that we would increase these amounts from and there was also a thing where well at a certain point when we adopted this 41C
we could have adopted a higher uh income amount like it was 7,000 and 6,000 and that was way back when where you could raise it to like at uh 20,000 and 30,000 for income. Okay. And then 40,000 and 55,000. You know, I'm talking single and married
when I'm saying there's two differences. So, and but those values are set by the do. Well, it was when you adopted it. So, I look back to see exactly what it was and we didn't adopt a higher income amount, but because we did it in 2001 as opposed
to these other places I have been, it was 13 and 14 when they did it. And um we're about at the same. So, we didn't add go for the larger amounts, but because we were increasing them every year, we're right in the same ballpark about 27,000. And then with the 55,000
uh or 5,500 exempt amount that comes off of your income anyway, you can really make up to like 32,000 or almost 33 this year and still qualify. But you can't have more than like 57,000 in the bank or assets. You can't have, you know,
land and another community owner or something like that for the house that you're trying to get the abatement on. Exactly. Is it so um I don't know. Would you guys be opposed to putting that on the town board? I think we need to um people Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. Educate them, you know, as far as the opportunities to reduce taxes and explain, you know, when when it does come time for an increase, we have to explain why it was increased as well. And I think what you're going to get is people who are going to be
interested in their taxes are going to be looking, you know, oh wow, I could get into B, you know, I could get a reduction, then they're going to, those are the same people that are going to have a problem with the increase, right? So that'll if we have those, right? And so we can set people and cross check on that, I guess,
take care of that. We know who has been applying for the exemptions and then see if they were uh impacted. Mhm. And so, yeah, if they were, those are those are the ones that we would have to worry about the most because other people that aren't on fixed incomes, you know, it's like, okay,
you're just going to have to pay your fair share now. Yeah. So, can you um can you put something on the town crier or have whoever from the town do I know the one at the bank where your bank is? Yeah.
Yeah. I think I think we do it. Don't we? I know. Oh, I don't know about Barl from DPW. She had she was the one that did it. I don't know if she actually I don't think she Oh, well, so she was the but she was the one that had um
I'll find out started the process of getting it done. So, if we could just put Yep. you know, um some type of wording. I don't know what it could say. Yeah. Posting on our the town Facebook page. Yeah. It's a little announcement.
Yeah, I think for the water thing on the town thing, it said like um elderly rate applications available for water and sewer. So we could put elderly and veteran except um exemptions or exceptions for property taxes, contact the board of assessors or
something like that. So, also in another community with the mayor, I did she had this podcast and she'd do it, you know, however often once a month or something like that and I was the guest speaker to talk about taxes and how they work. That's the channel 15.
Well, that's a good because a lot of people don't understand the difference between a preliminary bill and uh an actual bill. People get confused. Why isn't my value on the preliminary bill? Yeah. Why isn't it there? Exactly. And uh well, it's because the tax rate hasn't been set. that happens in
November and uh through the classification process any adjustments to value I'm making are approved by the department of revenue so we know exactly what we need to charge you and you know after that happens and that the first bill that you get after reflects that and that's when you have that 30 days to
apply for an abatement because now you you're sure you know what we're saying your obligation is and it's time to make your move. Yeah, I think I mean going on channel 15 on I know they do putting those dates in in people, you
know. Yeah, it is what it is. So, you might as well, you know, I had uh advocates coming into our meetings and telling me that it was my fault that people didn't understand it was the tax bill. And I had to push back because it's like okay
if you are at a point in your life where you are responsible enough to own a home then it's your responsibility to owners. I'm happy to provide information so that you can figure it out or get the information you know have something on the website or so on or come and talk to me. I'm happy to talk to you about it
and explain it but it's not my fault if you don't know. And I think part of you know people just it hasn't been explained right. So people think that there's some funny business going on, you know, behind the scenes, you know, they just don't understand. So that's where,
you know, transparency comes in. Okay. Hey, this is it's not really transparency, but it's more education. Yeah. Hey, this is how it works. Well, I think having access to because you can go on, you can search in Google and whatever, but I mean, hearing it from someone who's just trying to explain it to the taxpayer, you know,
just in in conversation makes it that much easier to understand. Yeah, definitely. And so that was part of why we did it because that's what you know I was getting fired off it. Um like I said someone they take that actual tax bill and then they multiply four and then it you know makes it look
worse than it is and oh you raised my taxes $6,000. No I did not you know right I raised $4,000 but you just saw you know it made up for it in the third and fourth quarter. And so, yeah, I' I'd be happy to do something like that, too, because it's all or or
even, like I said, put something on the website that's like that. Do we have how much education stuff do we have on our website, you know, look around other communities, look at what they have on their website compared to what we have. If there's something that you see that you think, oh, this is a good feature that they had. We can incorporate that into ours.
We can steal it from them if we have to. And you know, most of the places would be happy to help help us or provide us with what other info, but it's also just public information now that they're putting out there. So, the um applications for the elderly exemption and the veterans, is that
something that someone has to come in and fill out? Yes, they have. Okay. Or they'd have to we could mail it to them if they call once you're in the system. How I've handled it in the past is once you have qualified new on exemption then next year if you I'm going to send you the
application automatically. Okay. But the initial one the initial one when you don't know you have to get the uh you either come in we should have them available in a couple different locations probably with the town right in the town clerk. Yeah. At one point we had this
collaboration. And I thought it was a really great thing between the housing authority and the senior center and the assessor's office and uh there were a couple other people and it was all these hey these are the maximum benefits you could get not only just for us uh cuz we don't have the senior circuit breaker it's out there and we can tell people
about it but it's not really involved in our office. we can give you some information that you need to get it done, but um you know it's a benefit that's out there that you know and so we were thinking um you know where we got to make you know not every senior comes to the senior center so how can we where
do they go is what I was thinking they go to the bank and they go to the grocery store and so we reached out to some banks and they said sure you can have this table for like a month and you know you put your little display on it and then yeah cuz and then the tellers know and the tellers are the ones that know this you
mention that comes in. Exactly. They could maybe mention it to someone that they know. Oh, yeah. You know, cuz they're here when they get their social security check every month, but they know their bank balance. They know what their Yeah, exactly. They know they know their finances to an extent. I mean, my teller,
dude. Yeah. And so, you know, that was another proactive way that we could maybe reach out or try, you know, something, you know, with Westfield Bank right there. Yeah. Um Yeah. And there's a couple other banks, too. So, and it's really, you know, in any community, it would be a
good thing if we could talk to Westfield Bank and then in any place you have, you know, and I could probably reach out to the assessors and all that down, they'd be thrilled and love to do it because we all, I'm pretty sure, feel the same that, but especially, like I said, if you're only that's all you can make and that's all you got in the bank. Yeah.
You know, you you're living on peanut butter and pasta or cat food or something like that. Yeah. And that's the reason for those exemptions. Yeah. Exactly. And that's the reason for them. So yeah, it kills me when I find out that someone that could have been getting it for years, you know, doesn't know or only just finds out about 82 and
my 70some year old friend just told me and you know, oh my god, you know, how are you making it all this time? Especially over the last few years when you know it's you it takes $600 to fill your grocery cart as full as $200 used to, you know, three years ago.
So, well, yeah, I think that would be great to put something out there however we need to do that. But, yeah, that would be great. So, look into it. Yeah, we can, you know, we got step one with the the little presentation that I'm doing. um and you know talk to we
can and then we can see about expanding it and see I mean because even though we're advertising it and so another thing I wanted to mention is uh Diane the chairman of the select board asked me about well what can we do with the exemptions that would you know benefit
the the public. So there we are. We have an age of 70 for the senior exemption. We could adopt 65. We could adopt 67. They did 67 in Greenfield for some reason. So it doesn't have to be seven. So who would adopt that? We would have to, you know, present it
to the the select board and they would vote to adopt it. So we could max out some of the different things that are out there for benefits. Um although we have at least we went from this. So there's state limits obviously, right? limits. And so now sometimes you're worried, well, you know, that's going to
be an impact on the overlay because that's going to have to come up. We'll have to make it up somewhere. Well, how many is going to be three or four people maybe if we go from 7 to go to 65 of people that are going to qualify. So it's not like it's some huge financial impact and it will help a few people. It'll help a
few people and it is currently 70. It's currently 70. Yeah. Oh, but yeah, I think we should definitely look into making a recommendation because it's not going to What's the state 65? I would imagine. Um, no, it's it starts out at 70 and then it's up to the town to adopt
something different. But there's there can't go right at 37. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You can't go below 65. Okay. So, that would be the statement that, right? I think yeah that should maybe
the next meeting we should we should talk about that and decide on okay making a recommendation because if we're and we're kind of doing this overhaul of we have time because it's something that they would have to adopt before the fiscal year but it's good to talk about it and um yeah you know the sooner we can
present it I guess if we did uh you know the better if they're in agreement it's just something that's you know making it easier for the public when would um setting the tax rate when do they do that in November usually Yeah. So, and so they do it once we're done crunching the
numbers and then have the numbers that we've crunched and the adjustments that we've made approved by the Department of Revenue, then we can have the classification and so we'll have to do that public disclosure period. Yeah. So maybe maybe we could if we meet before that, right? I imagine again October 25th somewhere around that.
So if we talked about it then maybe be to make a recommendation so that they have it in their mind that this could be an impact, right? So, how about they might not be aware of it too, you know, that the because I thought it would be 65 just automatically not 70,
right? No, it's just 70. But it's up to you to adopt these other things with other options. Like one of them, we could have adopted a higher uh income and asset amount. But because we so long ago started increasing it incrementally, we're we're
right about at an even playing field with those other communities. That's what I was saying earlier that that did adopt those higher amounts and then started going from there from 2012 and 2014 and but those amounts to our limited by the state diire um yeah you couldn't go beyond this
20,000 30,000 was the maximum income those are maximum and then it was 40,000 that was for single and married and then for assets it was I think 40 and 55 for single and married in the past it was only a couple thousand my income 6,000. Our hers was
9,000 for a married couple. It wasn't as as generous. That's what how it started out with. Then we adopted like uh 13,000 or something like that and that's where we started. It's not mature assets though. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. No matter how you look at it.
Yeah. No matter how you Well, it doesn't include your house and I'm trying not to include the car. I mean, unless they're driving around a Lamborghini. Oh, okay. You know, just the house they live in. But it's basically cash in the bank. What about investments or CDs? Yeah, we
have a letter that talks about 401k bonds, securities, you know, all of the different things. And so it's, you know, it's kind of the honor system because we, you know, don't have some deep dive financial.com that we can put
a name in and find out about everyone's assets or something like that. And so, um, yeah, it's still it's set up for the people that need it. And, um, yeah, anything that we could do or propose to, uh, make it a little easier or increase the benefit.
So, we could potentially lower the age and we could increase a little bit if we wanted to the income and the asset value, asset allocation, expand the opportunity to more people. Yeah. I and I think I move to talk about
the next meeting, but I think that would be to try to push it to the limits and keep up with it as it is. But um yeah, we can uh talk about that next time. To the uh can I have a motion to adjurnn? I make a motion to adjourn the meeting.
Second that motion. All in favor? John Kane? Yes. Dean Harajic? Yes. Bill Brown? Yes. All right. Meeting of the board of assessors adjourned at 6:50.