Resident Creates Petition to Oust Tax Assessor, Assessor Responds

A Bethel resident and business owner has created a petition to call for the removal of Bethel’s tax assessor after what he calls “purposely excessive and illegal taxation by the Town’s Tax Assessor, Ann Marie Heering, and Board of Assessment Appeals Chairman, Alfred J. Bernard.”

Last week, a Superior Court judge ordered the Town of Bethel to pay over $180,000 in property tax refunds to Redding, Easton and Region 9 after a three-year battle over parking their buses on Bethel’s property, according to the News Times.

Dan Gaita, owner of Private Studio Fitness on Greenwood Ave. in Bethel, created the petition on Change.org, and cited a number of reasons for doing so. “From 2012-Present (2015) Their combined illegal and excessive tax assessments and deliberate denied assessment appeals has resulted in over a million dollars in lost tax revenue, legal fees, and costs to Bethel tax payers.”

Gaita continued in his petition, “Further, and equally expensive, has been the burden the Tax Assessor and Assessment Appeals Board have placed on our local residents and businesses that have been forced to incur the legal cost, lost time, and aggravation associated with Appealing tax assessments to the CT Superior Court. In most of these cases, the cost to appeal to the Superior court is in excess of $10,000 and takes 1-3 years to be fully adjudicated.”

In eight days since posting the petition, it has 68 signatures.

Bethel First Selectman Matthew Knickerbocker told the News Times that, “the accusations are “unfounded.” It’s a personal smear campaign designed to drive her out of office.”

Gaita previously ran for governor but recently said on an online forum on Facebook that he would be moving out of state in the coming year.

In his online petition Gaita closed by stating, “We are asking that Bethel seek to recruit or promote from within, a competent tax assessor that is business friendly, law abiding, and not so eager to expend Bethel’s economic resources hiring Town Attorneys to defend against suits that have all been lost at the Superior Court Level.”

Related:

Bethel Ordered to Pay $183K to Redding, Easton Schools

Bethels’ Gaita Set To Release Official Plan To Fix Connecticut

Bethel’s tax assessor, Ann Marie Heering, responded to Gaita’s petition with a Letter to the Editor to Bethel Patch explaining the details of the cases. The following (in italics) was written by Ann Marie Heering:

The buses:

The bus case was not about whether or not buses are taxable; buses are taxable. The First Student buses housed on Henry Street that transport Bethel’s students to and from school pay taxes to the Town of Bethel because First Student owns the buses. In order for property to be exempt it has to be owned and used for the purposes of the exempt organization.

An example of the requirement that property must be owned and used by the exempt organization would be the property on Stony Hill Road that was owned by the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp. Churches are exempt from taxes but that land was not being used for the purposes of the church organization so the land was taxable. Although the First Student buses are used for an exempt purpose (busing students) the buses are not owned by an exempt organization. The Region 9 case was about who actually owns the buses.

In a newspaper article in the Redding Pilot dated Thursday, May 12, 2011, Peggy Sullivan, director of finance for the Easton, Redding and Region 9 School System stated the School System was going to lease buses and register the buses in their name so that Dattco would not have to pay taxes to the Town of Bethel.

I contacted the Easton, Redding and Region 9 School System finance office and asked specially if the buses were being leased and was told yes. I asked for a copy of the lease agreement which they sent to me. I also called Dattco to confirm with them the status of the buses; they too said the buses were being leased. I taxed the buses as it was confirmed to me by the Easton, Redding and Region 9 School System and Dattco the buses were being leased. A lease is not ownership.

In September of 2013 I received a call from Dattco, they were trying to re-register the buses but could not because taxes were delinquent in the Town of Bethel. The executive from Dattco confirmed again the buses were being leased and even acknowledged that the contract stated the leasee was responsible for paying the taxes. At no time did the Easton, Redding and Region 9 School System provide any documentation to me showing they were not leasing the buses but in fact owned the buses.

The Judge’s ruling stated the contract was ambiguous and the facts that determined ownership could not have been known to the Town of Bethel prior to the case being heard in Court. Should I have ignored the lease documents, the confirmation from the Easton, Redding and Region 9 School System and Dattco that the buses were being leased and just removed the buses from the Grand List because after receiving a bill they said it was purchase agreement and not a lease but supplied no documents to such?

The Court Appeals on Commercial Property:

Commercial Court Appeals occur in every town within Connecticut that has commercial properties. There are corporations that appeal the value of their property after every revaluation. The following Connecticut Magazine article published in December of 2014 outlines the severity of the problem caused all municipalities in this state.

http://www.connecticutmag.com/Blog/Connecticut-Today/December-2014/LoveTargets-Prices-How-About-Big-Box-Stores-Property-Tax-Appeals/

Tax representatives have become the ambulance chasers for assessment appeals.

Eaton Corp, one of the suits filed after the 2012 revaluation has filed an appeal after every revaluation Bethel has performed. Eaton Corp. used the tax representative Extax Consulting Group, LLC to file their appeal

Eight Hundred Ninety Realty Company used the tax representative Joseph C. Sansone Company.

K-Brothers which I have been told by the author of the Connecticut Magazine also go by the name of Sam’s appealed all of their properties in Connecticut; they hired Attorney Reiner to represent them in their case against Bethel.

Extax Consulting Group, LLC, Joseph C. Sansone Company and Attorney Reiner are all named in the Connecticut Magazine article.

The Schrijver lawsuit cost the Town of Bethel Attorney’s fees and the cost of an appraisal. That case was dropped by the appellant just days before going to trial. The appellant appealed his case to the Board of Assessment Appeals a number of times before filing with the Superior Court. After the case was dropped, the appellant called both the First Selectman and me; he stated that although I had made many attempts to explain the process to him he just didn’t understand. This is a very intelligent person but sometimes the complexity of determining value is difficult for a lay person. He had the decency to call and apologize to me and the also call to inform the First Selectman that I was right and he was wrong.

Brookside Realty did not appeal the value of their property for the 2012 Grand List; they appealed the value for the 2013 Grand List after they had received the 2012 tax bill. They did not have a concern about the value of the property when first informed of the value. As the article states tax appeals have become “a practice viewed as tax avoidance strategy instead of a dispute over value.”

95000 Francis Clarke LLC was an agreement reached with the appellant (owner of the property) that increases the value of the property over the five years between 2012 and 2016 to the value the Town placed on it in 2012. The property roof had collapsed from one of the severe snowstorms we had in 2010. The property was sold to the current owner who had restored it and fixed all the damage so the building could be leased again. Although all the restoration had been done by the 2012 revaluation the building had just been place on the market for lease. As the building was completely vacant and the owner needed time to market it an agreement was reached to increase to the Town’s value over the five years the revaluation covered.

The Town of Bethe did not lose all of the cases. Out of the six real estate suits against the Town, one was withdrawn and the other five were agreements between the parties that the Court stipulated to. As the article in the Connecticut Magazine (link above) states “95 percent of appeals result in reductions, justified or not”.

Eaton Corp.

• Revaluation Year - 2012
• Year Appealled - 2012
• Town Value - 3,163,300
• Assessment - 2,214,310
• Appellant Estimate of Value - 2,300,000
• Assessment - 1,610,000
• Court Stipulated Agreement - 2,865,000
• Assessment - 2,005,500

Eight Hundred Ninety Realty Company

• Revaluation Year - 2012
• Year Appealled - 2012
• Town Value - 3,684,500
• Assessment - 2,579,150
• Appellant Estimate of Value - 1,637,560
• Assessment - 1,146,290
• Court Stipulated Agreement - 3,450,000
• Assessment - 2,415,000

K Brothers, LLC

• Revaluation Year - 2007
• Year Appealled - 2011
• Town Value - 754,180
• Assessment - 527,930
• Appellant Estimate of Value - 275,000
• Assessment - 192,500
• Court Stipulated Agreement - 600,000
• Assessment - 420,000

*It should be noted at the time of the 2007 revluation and old building was on this property. In 2009 the old building was torn down and a brand new building was built. The Town Value of 754,180 represents the value of the new building. This was also a one year agreement as the Town conducted a revaluation on the 2012 Grand List.

Schrijver Family Limited Partnership

• Revaluation Year - 2012
• Year Appealled - 2013
• Town Value - 142,010
• Assessment - 99,410

*Appellant withdrew case, no change in value.

Brookside Realty, LLC

• Revaluation Year - 2012
• Year Appealled - 2013
• Town Value - 3,281,200
• Assessment - 2,296,840
• Appellant Estimate of Value - 2,517,000
• Assessment - 1,761,900
• Court Stipulated Agreement - 2,999,900
• Assessment - 2,099,930

95000 Francis Clarke LLC

• Revaluation Year - 2012
• Year Appealled - 2012
• Town Value - 4,313,600
• Assessment - 3,019,520
• Appellant Estimate of Value - 3,120,000
• Assessment - 2,184,000
• Court Stipulated Agreement
• 2012 Value - 3,563,600
• 2012 Assessment - 2,494,520
• 2013 Value - 3,848,600
• 2013 Assessment 2,694,020
• 2014 Value - 4,003,600
• 2014 Assessment - 2,802,520
• 2015 Value - 4,158,600
• 2015 Assessment - 2,911,020
• 2016 Value - 4,313,600
• 2016 Assessment - 3,019,520

Ann Marie Heering Letter Continued:

The only case Bethel lost was the Easton Redding Region 9 School buses. As for my qualifications to be the Assessor for the Town of Bethel:

I was hired in September of 1994 as an entry level clerk. My duties included retrieving and filing field cards for the public, filing of documents, data entry, answering the phone, and all other basic clerk duties. Not exactly something a CPA would be interested in. I learned the work of the Assessor’s office very quickly and was given additional duties that far exceeded that of an entry level clerk from the very beginning of my employment. As I showed proficiency for the work I was sent to Assessor’s school at UCONN for the first of five courses in June of 1995, after successfully passing the exams for the first two courses my title was changed to Senior Clerk in 1996.

I continued on and successfully passed the next two courses and became eligible to take the exam to become a CCMA I (Certified Connecticut Municipal Assessor), a designation for small towns with population under 20,000 such as Bethel is. I passed that examination and became a Certified Assessor in 1999. After becoming certified I became the Assistant Assessor in December of 1999.

As I said earlier there are five different courses offered to become an Assessor. I went on to successfully pass the exam for the last course and became eligible to take the exam for the CCMA II designation. That designation is the highest designation that can be achieved. I passed the CCMA II exam in 2000. I was appointed Assessor in 2005. At the time of my appointment I had successfully passed every exam for all required courses and attained the highest possible Certification an Assessor can attain and had 11 years experience in assessing.

It should be noted that Assessors are required to obtain education credits and be recertified every five years. I continued, and still continue taking, educational courses and have met all the requirements to be recertified since attaining my initial certification. I also, at my own expense, took the first Tax Collector’s course and passed that course.

I thank you and anyone who takes the time to read all of this and extend to anyone who would like to call my office for any matter pertaining to the assessing of property in Bethel to do so. The number is 203-794-8507, the office is open Monday thru Friday from 8:30 to 4:30.

Thank you,

Ann Marie Heering