Why You Almost Received an Estimated Tax Bill This Year

At some point before we celebrate New Year's Eve, a third party will ship your tax bill on behalf of the town of Reading—and, this year, that's an accomplishment.

Due to a collision of factors, the town's assessment process got snagged and delayed this year. Normally, according to finance director Bob LeLacheur, the town hosts and completes its tax assessment hearing in early November.

This year, the town completed its tax assessment hearing during the , and that was after the hearing had been , which was supposed to be the town's last for 2010.

"We did the best we could to get it done, and we got in under the wire," said Bob Nordstrand, chairman of Reading's Board of Assessors.

Had the town failed to complete the process, he said, it would have had to send out estimated tax bills. Not only could that leave residents paying two separate bills, he said, but it could have backed up town business.

For example, Nordstrand said, it could have left the board of assessors dealing with things in the spring that should have been completed in the winter, and it could have taken the town a year or more to get back on schedule.

"It didn't happen that way, so we don't have to worry about it," Norstrand said.

He said the delay occurred because the board of assessors ran into a handful of complications.

For one, he said, 2010 represented Reading's triennial reassessment, when the sate has "very high standards and a lot of forms to fill out." Second, he said, the board didn't always get a rapid response from the state. Third, the town this year used an new appraiser, and, while he did a "good job" according to S J Port, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts State Department of Revenue, he had never dealt with the state's triennial process before.

"[If] they're new to a town, it can sometimes slow the process a little bit," Port said.

Nordstrand said the town's appraiser, Bill Boatwright, initially derived two values for some commercial properties along South Main Street where many commercial properties stretch into the abutting residential zone.

For that reason, Nordstand said, Boatwright set one value for the part of the property that lays in the commercial zone, and a second value for the portion in the residential zone. That state, Nordstrand said, didn't accept that method.

"They insisted that he come up with one value for the combined property," Nordstrand said.

In the last days of the year, Nordstrand said, the assessors, the town and the state all worked overtime to complete the process and keep Reading on its streak of sending accurate tax bills. In his 40 years on the board, Nordstand said, the town has never failed to do so.

"It wouldn't have been the end of the world to send out estimated bills," Nordstrand said. "It happens quite often… [but it] probably would have been expensive."