Sweden reassessments irk residents

Residents in the Town of Sweden are upset with the process involved in the recent reassessment, prompting many of them to file grievances with the Assessment Review Board.

In addition to questioning why the notices were mailed on the last day allowed by the state, taxpayers are angry with what they see as unfairness in the valuations. "My issue is equity in this whole reassessment," taxpayer Lori Skoog said. "This needs to be fair to everyone and right now it isn't."

Cole-Layer-Trumble Co. conducted the reassessments that were done because the town's office of real property services wants property valuations to be at 100 percent of market value. Sweden's last reassessment was done in 2000.

In a comment to residents, Town of Sweden Supervisor Nat "Buddy" Lester said, "The town board has no expertise or legal role in establishing the assessed values of property. However, we have taken the public's criticism of the recent assessment update process seriously. We have met with the town assessor's office to initiate procedural changes which will include: earlier assessment change notification; the inclusion of an explanatory cover letter with assessment change notices; an updated computer system; more roll books available at the (town office) counter; and more publicity prior to a major update," he said. "We hope these steps will alleviate some of the confusion experienced during the current update. We'd like to thank the residents who brought these procedural improvements to our attention. With your input, we will be able to make this a simpler process to understand."

Town Assessor Alan Bader explained that the state allows for an error rate of 10 percent on market value and as long as the town is within that allowable range it can still maintain a 100 percent equalization rate. "When you fall out of that range, you need to do an update," he said. "We were out of the range so we did the reassessment."

Skoog questioned the formulas used to determine assessments. "If someone's property was reduced and yours wasn't, you need to ask why," she said. "You need to ask what formula was used to determine your assessment and you need to request the comparables."

Village of Brockport Mayor Josephine Matela said the reassessment notices came as a surprise to taxpayers. "We weren't privy to how the adjustments were formulated nor were we privy to when the notices were going out," she said. "We were not involved in the process in any way."

"The Sweden assessment office has met several times with someone from the village assessor's office. I have also mentioned the assessment update on more than one occasion during my regular meetings with the mayor," Lester said. "It is important to remember that the village budget is established by the village board (no input from the Sweden Town Board) and that they pay their own assessor to establish the village tax roll. If the village assessor is not comfortable with the property values set by Sweden's assessor, he is free to place whatever numbers he deems appropriate for village properties. The adjustments made by the town assessment update will not affect the village roll unless the village administration chooses to do so."

In a letter to the editor (in this week's edition) Skoog wrote that "frustration is at an all time high" and that stems from the taxpayers being unable to obtain the information they need on how their properties were valued.

More than 160 residents have filed grievances with the town over the assessments. "Out of 3,200 notices we only have 166 grievances filed," Bader said. "If you can do a mass appraisal and only get five or 10 percent grieving the assessment - that is phenomenal."

Many residents are questioning the need for the reassessments when the same process was undertaken in 2001. Bader explained that after the 2001 assessment, a system was put into place to determine home and land values based on a replacement cost/depreciation ratio with the base year of construction being 1970. Bader said that all properties in that reassessment were valued as if they were built in 1970. But in 2001, the town converted to a full value basis for the assessments - those figures are determined based on sales of comparable properties. "The state monitors sales transactions to look for trends, consistency and for our adherence to the standards they set for assessments," Bader said. "We embarked on our annual reassessment program, for which the state reimburses us $5 per taxable parcel to maintain an equitable assessment roll."

Taxpayer Michael Barczak, Jr. said that if taxpayers can see where their money is being spent, they wouldn't be as upset with a reassessment. "People need to get involved with their community then you will know what's going on and where your money is going," he said. "I think my increase was fair because if we want to have services we have to pay for them." Barczak cautioned that the increase shouldn't let officials think they have an open book on spending.

Annual reassessments, Bader said, help the town catch inequities much more quickly. "We don't make a profit or additional money when assessments increase," Bader said adding that town decreased as well as increased parcels' values. "There were 1,000 properties that didn't get raised and there were some that went down because the property value was below the market value."

Matela said the bottom line to her is the key to property assessment is to establish value based on current use. "I think we need to take a look at the methodology used in determining the value of rental property in the village given the fact that it is more than half of our housing inventory," she said. "We need to look at this very closely and take appropriate steps to remedy this situation and if it means we need to look at village assessments again we will be prepared to do that."

Bader said that valuing rental properties differently is illegal and cannot be done.

Sweden officials are offering six days of grievance time for residents to come in and discuss their individual issues and see what comparables were used in making the assessment determinations. The members of the board of assessment review for Sweden have experience in commercial, residential and agricultural real estate. The members are: Harold Coleman, Rich Miller, Matt Minor, Bob Muesebeck and Frank Sacheli.