Putnam and Carmel Assessors Oppose Immediate Property Reval
Even though the Town of Carmel is in great need of a comprehensive, town-wide reassessment of the full market value of all properties in town, which has not been conducted since 1996, now is not the right time to do so given the current housing market, according to Town of Carmel Assessor Glenn Droese and Putnam County Real Property Services Director George Michaud.
The two assessors, who attended the Carmel Civic Association’s monthly meeting to discuss the topic, agreed that the town should wait until at least 2014 in order for the housing market to rebound, as opposed to spending an estimated half of a million dollars on a town-wide reassessment that would most likely provide poor, inaccurate data due to the many foreclosures and shorts sales that are mixed in with regular home sales.
The Carmel Civic Association organized the meeting as a follow-up to a discussion the association had one month previous with a Carmel Central School District official to understand why school district residents who live in the Hamlet of Carmel seemed to pay almost two-fold of what other school district residents paid who live in other towns that had in recent years conducted a reassessment or reval.
They were told at that meeting, as was explained again by Droese and Michaud, that the state-mandated equalization rate, used to create parity between homeowners who are assessed at full value and those who are not, was the cause for the difference.
“Sometimes it’s in your favor,” Michaud said of the specific impact of the equalization rate on Hamlet of Carmel residents. “Sometimes, in a declining market, it’s not.”
Droese explained that while the northern portion of the county, some of which is inside of the Carmel Central School District, had seen an overall drop in total property value, the southern portion of the county, including the Hamlet of Carmel, had seen some uptick in total overall property values with the return of a large commercial property to the tax rolls, as well as new condominiums. This increased the portion of the Carmel Central School District tax levy that Hamlet of Carmel residents were obliged to pay.
Among others, two residents of the Hamlet of Carmel, Putnam County Legislator Carl Albano and Carmel Board of Education Vice President Jennifer Doherty both said the time had come for a reassessment so that everyone paid their share of taxes based on equal measures. Referencing the assertion that a reval done now could produce inaccurate data, Doherty asked if the fact that properties in Carmel hadn’t been reassessed in over a decade and a half wasn’t contributing to other inaccuracies that were negatively impacting Hamlet of Carmel residents when it came to school taxes.
Droese said that based on the number of challenges from property owners his office received last year and the number of those that resulted in a successful, reduced assessment after going through small claims court, he believed the town still was hitting the mark well with valuation even without the reassessment.
Last year, 500 property owners out of a total of 13,000 parcels in the Town of Carmel contested their individual assessment. Of those 500, only 134 had their assessments reduced.
Putnam County Executive MaryEllen Odell, who attended the opening of the meeting, said that she would be introducing a resolution in the county legislature to support the Town of Carmel and the Town of Philipstown, which also has not undergone a reassessment in many years, to come up to a 100 percent valuation.
County Executive Odell, who previously worked at a title closer for 17 years, said there were several reasons for inequities in real property assessments, one of which was revals taking place over a long, multi-year period of time in separate towns and broadly described what a reval in Carmel would mean for taxpayers.
“There is a general rule: a third will pay a higher amount, which is what they should be paying; a third will pay what they should be paying, which is a lower amount; and a third will pay the same,” she said.
Carmel Town Supervisor, who attended the meeting along with Carmel Councilwoman Suzanne McDonough and Councilman Jonathan Schneider, said that he was in favor of a new reval, but that he had deep concerns about doing it in a poor economy.
“There is no question, 100 percent, we absolutely need to do a reval in the Town of Carmel….it’s not fair and equitable right now the way things are. And I feel for all of you people who live up in the Hamlet of Carmel because [there is] a disparity in the amount of money that you are paying as opposed to neighboring towns or other residents in the Town of Carmel. That has to be corrected,” Supervisor Schmitt said.
But fixing this disparity by conducting a reval next year could come with unwanted circumstances, he said.
“We are going to have the highest tax rate in Putnam County and probably in some of our surrounding counties, [if we do it now] in a recession economy. I think we need to wait. I could change my mind on that. If someone convinced me that this is the absolute right time to be doing it, I will be one vote supporting it,” Supervisor Schmitt said.
