Assessor Warns Selectmen Of

Possible Grand List Contraction

By John Voket

Newtown Assessor Chris Kelsey warned the Board of Selectmen January 20 that he is expecting to either post no net gain, or possibly a slight decline in the Grand List this year.

According to the Connecticut Office of Policy & Management, the Grand List reflects the aggregate valuation of taxable property within a given town. The Grand List represents taxable categories and exemptions, including residential, commercial, industrial, public utility, vacant, land, 10 mill forest, motor vehicles, personal property.

Since it is among the town’s revenue streams along with permit fees, modest returns from traffic citation fines and other ordinance violations, grants and state payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) for property like the Garner Correctional facility and Governor’s Horse Guard property, the news was met with concern, especially by Selectman Paul Mangiafico.

Mr Kelsey told The Bee after the meeting that he was still crunching numbers, but he expected declines in real estate and motor vehicle assessments to weigh negatively against an increase in personal property taxes — assessments against things like commercial vehicles, office furnishings, tools, equipment and computers local companies use in the course of doing business.

He equated every one percent decline in the Grand List with about $1 million in revenues.

“I don’t anticipate we will see close to one percent, but real estate is going to be the wild card,” Mr Kelsey said, adding that he expects to have hard numbers to offer to town officials by early next week.

The news came up during the first night of selectmen budget deliberations on the municipal side of the proposed 2009- 2010 budget. The school district deliberates and submits its own budget proposal for consideration to the local Board of Finance along with the outcomes of the selectmen’s actions on the town side.

The assessor said a recent development of almost $11 million in “unknown owner” properties has become the “500-pound gorilla in the room.” Lacking the ability to collect taxes on these dozens of properties will contribute further to the projected contraction in revenues garnered from real property taxes this year.

If all the owners were known, the assessed values of the approximately 75 parcels would equate to $7.6 million in taxable property. Mr Kelsey said his office will initially have to incur some additional expense contracting forensic title searches to capture the “low hanging fruit.”

That involves putting out an request for proposal, or RFP, to title searchers who might be able to easily, or more easily, locate the properties’ owners.

Mr Kelsey explained that these parcels were developed as the new GIS or satellite mapping system the community uses was refined during the last revaluation process.

“After the last reval, we had to take every unknown owner parcel off the grand list, at the same time reducing the values to between $1 and $10,” the assessor said. When and if any owners are developed going forward, the most the assessor can recover by law is the taxable value of each parcel going back just three years.

Of the approximately 75 parcels, Mr Kelsey noted that some appear to be involved in landowner disputes. The largest parcels are 17–18 acres, and the smallest could be the size of a driveway or a fraction of an acre, Mr Kelsey said.

On a positive note, during deliberations on the assessor’s office budget proposal, the selectmen also learned that as personnel complete certifications and training, the town may be able to take up state mandated statistical revaluations that occur about every five years.

By handling this duty “in-house,” the assessor’s staff will save the taxpayers about 50 percent of the cost of contracting the service to an outside vendor, town Finance Director Bob Tait told selectmen.