Under Massachusetts General Laws the Board of Assessors must assess all property at full and fair cash value. These values are used as the basis of the local property tax which means that all property should be taxed according to value.
As all Fall River homeowners know, our actual home values have gone down due to the declining market yet the assessments have stayed the same because they are revaluated every three years.
Discussed in a Boston Globe article is the fact that, "Taxpayers are being asked to pay more at a time when they are seeing local services decline, as cities and towns struggle to cover rising health care, utility, and pension costs. It comes at a time when the assessed value of their homes has begun to exceed the actual value, because of the decline in the housing market."
Every three years there is an examination of all property values. This procedure is called a revaluation. According to the random sampling I did on the Fall River Property Information link it appears as though the Fall River revaluation was most recently done in 2008, right as Mayor Correia took office. This gives Correia three years to budget according to the inflated property tax revenue of home valuations that are over-assessed due to the declining market without having to raise taxes and still come off as a budget hero.
So basically, Bob is budgeting off of property tax revenue that is no longer accurate due to the market decline. Sad for the next guy who may take office.
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3 comments:
From the HN , this just says it all!!!
http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x822802309/Lambert-counters-audit-claims
Hippaka3 days ago
letters
On October 14, 1964, after being deposed by his rivals at a Central Committee meeting, primarily for being an ‘international embarassment,’ Nikita Khrushchev, who until only moments earlier was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, sat down in his office and wrote two letters.
Later, his successor, Leonid Brezhnev, upon taking office found the two letters and a note Khrushchev had attached:
‘To my successor: When you find yourself in a hopeless situation which you cannot escape, open the first letter, and it will save you. Later, when you again find yourself in a hopeless situation from which you cannot escape, open the second letter.’
And soon enough, Brezhnev found himself in a situation which he couldn’t get himself out of, and in desperation he tore open the first letter. It said simply, ‘Blame it all on me.’ This Brezhnev did, blaming Khrushchev for the latest problems, and it worked like a miracle, saving him and extending his career. However, in due time Brezhnev found himself in another disaster from which he could not extricate himself. Without despairing he eagerly searched his office and found the second letter, which he tore open desperate for its words of salvation. It read thus:
‘Sit down, and write two letters.’
I read that in the Herald News comments...i really enjoyed it, thank you .
City's expenses go up every year, just as yours and mine do. So in order to cover this they almost have to either:
1. Raise the tax rate to cover assessed values that may have gone down in order to get an increase in revenue.
2. Do what they're doing this year which is have a higher than fair market value assessment but with no tax rate increase.
Essentially, you're tax bill is never going to go down because the City's expenses will never go down.
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