Oops: City Will Mail Clearer Reval Notices

Look for another version of the notice about your new tax assessment — now that City Hall has discovered that last week’s notices gave homeowners like Renata Dicks the mistaken idea their taxes will go down.

Renata Dicks (pictured) thought her taxes were going to decrease based on the property revaluation notice she received this week. She had a rude awakening Saturday at the second City Hall Neighborhood Reval Road Show: Her taxes well might rise.

The likely culprit: Her notice, like everyone else’s, contained only the full 2006 assessment — not the 40 percent phase-in of that number, the baseline to do the math correctly.

The notice included her new assessment, too, the result of a new citywide property revaluation. Dicks looked at her new number. She looked at the full 2006 number. She compared the numbers. The new number is lower. That’s why she figured her taxes would drop.

The notice didn’t include the number she would need to make the meaningful comparison.

Thanks to the decision of the city to send out the notices that way, a lot of people, like Dicks, might be under the impression that they are sitting pretty tax-wise when in fact they well might face an increase.

After listening to the discussion and a rising crescendo of confusion, Mayor John DeStefano made a decision on the spot to direct his staff to send out a new notice with the third number (the 40 percent phase-in number) and appropriate explanation.

Dicks was one of 35 people who filled the basement gymnasium/auditorium of St. Bernadette Church in Morris Cove at the second public session on the 2011 property revaluation, the basis for next year’s tax bills.

The weeks following receipt of new assessment notices are generally fraught. The mayor has created a traveling seminar in which he takes the role of lead teacher to explain to the neighborhoods the process and the context of the reval.

He’s apparently about to assign more homework.

Click here for a previous story and video walking through the process of figuring out your new assessment. And click here for a story about the first session of the road show held on Thursday night at Hillhouse High’s cafeteria. At that session, the focus of attendees was on figuring out if the actual physical inspection of property done by Vision Appraisal was accurate.

At Saturday’s meeting, homeowners like Hyman Rodriguez also were also checking the ​“field cards” for accuracy about number of rooms, square footage, and whether Vision Appraisal accurately noted the improvements he had made to his Quinnipiac Avenue property. They had.

However, confusion about the figures in the reval notices, or, specifically, the absence of the partial 2006 assessment figure, was the centerpiece of discussion at St. Bernadette’s.

Attorney and Morris Cove homeowner Anthony Avallone sparked the discussion by calling DeStefano’s attention to the absence of the baseline 40 percent 2006 phase in number in the PowerPoint presentation the mayor has been making.. (Click here for a version of that presentation.)

That number is also lacking on the reval notices.

Here’s why it matters in plain language: The last reassessment in 2006 was never fully phased in. So current taxes are based not on the full 2006 reassessment. They’re based on 40 percent of that reassessment. So to know whether your assessment went up or down, you need to compare it to a number that represents 40 percent of your 2006 assessment — not the full number, which is what the city sent out.

Renata Dicks ran with the issue. ​“For a person getting this notice, it’s so misleading,” she said.

Dicks’s Florence Street home shows $155,000 for the 2006 (full) assessed value. It also shows $130,000 as the 2011 assessment.

That indicates a downward trend in ultimate tax liability.

However, Vision Appraisal’s Gary Fields showed her that the comparison should be between the $130,000 (her new assessment) and a number not on her notice, $112,000, which represents the 40 percent phase-in of the full 2006 assessment. That shows a jump in the value in her property — and a very possible tax increase on the way.

Although the 2006 phase-in number is readily available on online, many taxpayers, especially elderly homeowners in Morris Cove, may not be technologically savvy enough to go there and redo the math.

Actual taxes will ultimately be determined in the spring when the budget and mill rate are decided in the annual budget-making process. For now, the rule of thumb the mayor has been using is that if a home’s new assessed value, gleaned from the the reval notice, exceeds the city’s overall 9.2 percent increase, taxes will rise; if less, then they may drop.

Dicks, who is active on her Florence Street block watch as well as the East Shore Management Team, said St. Bernadette’s would have been packed if people knew how to read the document accurately.That is, if they had had access to the missing third number, the 2006 assessment partial phase-in.

The mayor’s response: He agreed it was an oversight.

“I think it’s a missing piece of information,” he said at the end of the polite, engaged meeting. He agreed also that a lot more people might need explanation.

“Let’s do [another] a letter,” he told Acting Assessor Alex Pullen and press liaison Elizabeth Benton.

“We will probably [also] extend the Vision Appraisal review period. We’ll send out a revised letter, and probably have more meetings!” he added.

Mayor DeStefano said that when contracted, Vision Appraisal had not been requested to include the 2006 phase-in value in its notices because the phase-in is viewed as an exemption. By statue, their documents are required simply produce the two assessments in whole, for 2006 and 2011.

Pullen explained that to Dicks.

“You’ve missed getting goodwill,” she responded. ​“They [homeowners] will miss their appointments with Vision Appraisal” because they will mistakenly believe they’re in better shape.

Pullen said it may be the right thing to do to send out a notice. Yet to do so also has the potential to sow more confusion, he said.

After taxpayers left, DeStefano assembled his staff at the far end of the St. Bernadette stage and huddled up to prepare to send out the 2006 phase-in number in a separate communication. Even if it meant extending the process with more appeal time, and more meetings of the road show.

The next meeting is Monday night at Edgewood School.

Informal hearings with Vision Appraisal staff are scheduled to run between Dec. 12 and Dec. 21, for now. The number to call for an appointment: 888 – 844-4300.

The dates and locations of the other scheduled neighborhood reval meetings are as follows:

● 7:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 12 at Edgewood School, 737 Edgewood Ave.
● 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 13 at Bishop Woods School, 1481 Quinnipiac Ave.
● 7 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 14 at Celentano School, 400 Canner St.
● 7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 15 at Career High School, 140 Legion Ave.

Previous coverage of the revaluation:
• Reval Show Hits The Road
• Will Your Taxes Go Up?
• East Rock Braces For Reval Sticker Shock