THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

The public has been bombarded with one giant lie about revaluation for years and in the last week it was perpetuated in flagrant ignorance of the facts.

 For the County Executive not to know how revaluation would affect the taxpayers he assaults every year with his $1.8 Billion budget by not cutting his own total budget is disturbing. (Eliminating expenses but still raising the budget is not cutting the budget).

WPCNR requests of the County for a statement from the County Department of Taxation and Finance on a general projection of what “reval” would mean in Westchester was not responded to by the county.

The fact is,the County Executive appears not to be aware of how revaluation has worked in the state next door. Why does he not know. The  Westchester County Association, self-styled crusaders for property tax reform the last two years do not apparently know either, or appear to not to want to know. The County Executive and the WCA lose all credibility when they put out an untested solution not based on facts readily available.

Does any one have any idea of what Revaluation would do?

In White Plains, City Assessor Lloyd Tasch told WPCNR last week there has never been a projection done in the city about what a revaluation of White Plains property would mean for the taxpayers. There has not be a reval since the mid-1950s.  Tasch did say that now when real estate prices are soft and businesses are experiencing declines is not a good time to do a “reval,” because market values have declined. He said any municipality wanting to do a reval should execute it in a period of prosperity to avoid having to raise the city tax rate if the city market value (or Grand List as it is called in Connecticut) had declined significantly from its current tax  roll.

Tasch said any revaluation would require the county and municipalities agreeing on how a reval would be conducted, how property would be valued, which he suggested would take a considerable time to hammer out. Then, he said, it would take  time to do a reval (in Connecticut it took 2 years in the city of Waterbury). He said it would probably take at least 5 years to do a reval.

Then Tasch said that the general affect of a reval is homeowners’ property taxes would go up substantially, and commercial owners’s property taxes would go down.

Tasch said that some sort of percentage would have to be applied to lower homeowner tax increases as a result to prevent homeowners in White Plains from being hurt in a revaluation.

When to Reval that is the question

This reval “at the top of the market”  is what has happened in Connecticut, which revalues by law all its residential property every five years.

Connecticut’s last revaluation was conducted in 2006, the height of the real estate boom. The result: housing values went up.  But now that hard times have hit, the taxes from the salad days of 2006 are coming in high and hard.

In suburban West Haven, tax bills increased as much as $5,000 in one year, because West Haven decided to bill for all the revalued home assessments the next year. This, according to the New Haven Advocate quote of a Century 21 realtor, contributed to West Haven having more homes in the foreclosure process than Bridgeport at the end of 2008. Mr. Spano and Mr. Mooney can read about this at www.newhavenadvocate.com/article_print.cfm?aid=3151

The ravages of the Connecticut Revaluation of 2006, have caused such an upheaval in property taxes that the State of Connecticut passed a law May 27, responding to the outcry of dozens of towns, that allows towns to delay implementing the property tax increases until 2011 The city of New Haven is the first to take advantage of the law, delaying the new property taxes, and Andy Spano and Bill Mooney could have read about it, if they so wished.

So if White Plains were to implement a reval on properties that have not been reassessed since the 1950s., that have not changed owners in 25 years, it does not take a genius to figure out that Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains, and Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. Westchester are going to get killed on property taxes in any revaluation.

Reval Disaster in Connecticut

The New Haven Register highlighted the problem in 2006 – before the latest round of revaluations, pointing out that  property taxes were doubling or tripling even before the 2006 debacle. One owner saw their property taxes go from $8,400 to $11,000; homes on the water in Branford saw taxes go from$7,000 to $20,000.  The article, written in January 2006 may be seen at  www.hpearcere.com/content/2006/revaluation.asp

Supporters of revaluation always use the line, a third of the homes go up in value (and taxes), a third go down and a third remain the same.

 In Seymour, Connecticut, the New Haven Register  First Selectman Robert Koskelowski explained why his town of Seymour is delaying implementing their revaluation until October 2010. He said commercial and industrial property values always decline in a revaluation, (reducing their taxes). Koskelowski attributed this to companies being able to mark down the value of equipment and other property each year as they depreciate. Homeowners, the New Haven Register points out in their May 25, 2009  article at www.nhregister.com/articles/2009/05/25/news/valley/b7-sereval.prt. though cannot mark down the value of their homes as the home infrastructure deteriorates.

In New Haven, as of May 27, 3 weeks ago,  their Mayor (John DeStefano)has been quick to take advantage of Connecticuts Revaluation “Delay” Law.

New Haven has voted to delay implementing the new property taxes from revaluation because they are overwhelming the community. The increase the average New Haven homeowner faced was a 5.4 % tax hike this year  (in the third year of the five years New Haven has to implement its revaluation completed in 2006). Roughly it would appear over those five years New Haveners could expect a 25% property tax hike overall. An article in the New Haven Independent outlines what New Haven is facing at www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/02/mayor_seeks_rev.php

Revaluation Lowers Commercial and Business Taxes. Raises Homeowners’ Taxes

In the Hartford Courant of May 27, 2009, an article by Bill Leukhardt  notes that postponement of revaluation does not work to the city advantage. Leukhardt quotes Waterbury Assessor David M. Deutsch pointing out that delays in implementing keep commercial and business taxes higher by postponing adjustments reflecting longer-term increases in housing values. That article may be read at http://www.courant.com/community/news/hfd/hc-west-hartford-reval-0527.artmay27,0,7623043.story

The Courant story tells more of how the tax impact of revaluation has raised an outcry statewide resulting in the “delay” law.

This statement, apparently an afterthought,  by Deutch highlights the big myth of revaluation that has been exposed right next door. He seems to be saying that businesses will benefit from revaluation even more than they do under the assessment system that New York has now. In New York,  home values are included in with commercial property values which creates the ongoing certiorari drain on White Plains and Westchester city and town tax rolls thanks to increasing home values.

The more things change…

If you go back 17 years to 1991, The New York Times confirms the horror of revaluation has long been with us, when Connecticut did it every 10 years, instead of 5 years. And even then, when the revaluation was done, communities sought delay in implementation.

In 1989 in Greenwich, 3,700 homeowners in that year filed grievances. The revaluation that year resulted, and I quote the Times article by Eleanor Charles, “The overall effect statewide (of revaluation) has been a significant shifting of the tax burden from commercial to residential,in some cases creating a 30 to 50 percent tax increase.”

It is interesting to note that the Town of Seymour delayed implementation back in 1991, too, and according to their then assessor, Anna Marks, who said, and I quote the article, “Now that the market has come down somewhat we just hired (a firm) to do another revaluation by Oct. 1.”

Robert Tuthill, the Greenwich Assessor  in 1991 was quoted as saying, “revaluations are threatening for retired people especially. And a lot of people who bought homes for $1 Million are finding they aren’t worth a million any more. Others have multimillion-dollar houses that were grossly underassessed.”

The Times view into Connecticut’s Revaluation past may be found at  http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/05/realestate/in-the-region-connecticut-and-westchester-connecticut-revaluations-raise-hackles.html

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. (The more things change the more they remain the same.)

Don’t the citizens of Westchester and White Plains deserve the facts on revaluation from the county instead of a poorly thought out policy that serves a narrow, highly tax-benefitted minority — the business community in an election year?