Town Manager, Assessor Explain Tax Rate

A nearly half a billion dollar reduction in the assessed value of Merrimack after this year's townwide revaluation has had some ripple effects on people's tax bills sent out at the end of October.

During the course of the revaluation, the town lost $4.35 million in assessed value, making the $3.23 billion town in 2010 a $2.8 billion town in 2011. Partially because of the nearly 14 percent decrease in value, the town's tax rate increased $3.90 from $19.53 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2010 to $23.43 in 2011.

The revalution completed this spring and early summer showed an average home assessment drop about 15 percent, while an average condo dropped almost 20 percent.

For residents whose properties fell in lockstep with these decreases, they saw either an about equivalent tax bill from last year to this year, or even a lower tax bill.

For those whose home values decreased, but saw an smaller percent decrease than 15 percent, or for those homes that increased in value, tax bills may have come with a bit of sticker shock.

As such, the Town Manager and Town Council invited assessor Loren Martin and Stephan Hamilton, director of the Department of Revenue Administration's Property Appraisal Division, to explain the revaluation and tax rate setting process during the

Martin explained that new home assessments are based on a few pieces of data that include sales of comparable homes in town and data collected on homes from the last 10 years – anything from home improvements to losses, damage, environmental factors and more.

They create a model based on the data and approximately 500 home sales.

Because sales are very subjective, the process can never be perfect, Hamilton said.

“This process is not a perfect process but it is a reasonably fair process,” Hamilton said. "The difficulty is taking the sold properties and applying the information gathered around town to the non-sale properties.”

The tax rate, set by the state's Department of Revenue Administration, is broken into four parts: town, local school, state school and county. It is based on the town's assessment and the money needed to be raised by taxes according to the budget set for the year.

This years breakdown shows the town represents 22.36 percent of the bill ($5.24), the county is 4.91 percent ($1.15) and the combined school portions at 72.73 percent ($14.53 local school and $2.50 state school).

The table below represents the increases from last year's bill.

This means, Cabanel said, a property valued at $300,000 will have a tax bill of $7,029 this year – $1,572 for the town, $5,112 for the schools and $345 for the county.

Since the tax bills were received by residents at the beginning of the month, Martin said there have been many calls with concerns about the bills, but the vast majority have been about the rate itself, not the assessed values.

“I would urge tax payers that are aggrieved with the tax to become involved in the deliberative sessions, the town meetings, the school board meetings because that is why the bills are high,” Martin said.

Residents who question if the value of their home was properly assessed can contact the assessing department to make an appointment to learn more about their property. After being given the information about the assessment, if they believe it to be wrong, the property owner can file for an abatement that would essentially reconsider the assessment.

Martin said the process of assessing properties has improved a lot over the last 10 years.

“We still don't please all people all of the time, but we try,” she said, inviting anyone who wants more information about their assessment, to correct any inconsistencies they see or to file an abatement to make an appointment as soon as possible.

“Our assessing office is here to help you figure out your tax cards and to go through them with you,” Cabanel said. “It's not an adversarial process if you would like to sit down and you'd like to go over your card with someone and have them explain it to you, we're here to do that with you. There is nothing wrong with filing an abatement we don't hold it against you. If your property values are not correct we want to correct them. Don't feel intimidated by the process.”

Tax bills are due by Dec. 1. Property owners can make an appointment to talk about their property tax assessment by calling the Assessing Department at 424-5136.

MORE INFORMATION:

PDFs of the tax rate breakdown and an assessment/tax rate power point presented at the Town Council meeting on Oct. 27 are attached.

Read another story from last night's meeting,

Check out the video of the Oct. 27 and the Nov. 16 Town Council meetings on the Merrimack TV website, both of which discuss this topic. The tax rate discussion starts about 53 minutes into the Oct. 27 meeting and about 35 minutes into the Nov. 16 meeting.