As Mayor John DeStefano prepares to give his first public address on a confusing property revaluation, taxpayers wondering whether to expect ballooning tax bills can get some clues — if they know which numbers to avoid.
The answer won’t officially be revealed until aldermen vote on a budget in May, but you can start to get a sense by taking a peek at your latest revaluation notice.
East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker, who represents the neighborhood that’s due to be hit hardest by the revaluations, offers a clear explanation of the complicated process in a five-and-a-half-minute Youtube video released Monday, complete with explanatory graphics. Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch.
Mayor John DeStefano will offer his own explanation at a public meeting Thursday at 7 p.m. at Hillhouse High School. Click here for a draft of the PowerPoint presentation he plans to give. It is the first of several planned neighborhood presentations.
The public addresses come with the latest revaluation of all city property, which is now required by state law every five years. Inspectors from Vision Appraisal examined residential and commercial property over the course of the year, looked at property sales and commercial income, and came up with a number that’s supposed to represent the “fair market value” of each building. That new number will be the basis for municipal property tax calculations.
City of New Haven
The revaluation will send relief to some taxpayers and will shock others, as property values in some sections of the city rose as much as 55 percent. Check out the chart to see how the revaluation affected various neighborhoods. East Rock saw the highest increases in value, while some places like Newhallville saw marked drops.
Without knowing the tax rate yet, you can still get a sense of whether you should rejoice — or bite the bullet — this tax season.
Overall, city property values rose an average of 9.2 percent.
That’s comparing the new revaluation to the assessment on which your current taxes are based, which is a partial phase-in of the 2006 property revaluation. (Back story: The 2006 revaluation, done during the peak of the housing bubble, rocked the city because home values rose so high since the previous revaluation in 2001. Instead of implementing the full whack, the city decided to phase in the increase over five years. The city ended up freezing the phase-in at year two, or 40 percent of the increase, because raising homeowners’ tax bills was not politically viable.)
Justin Elicker Graphic
To figure out how much your assessment is going up, Elicker advises taking out last year’s tax bill. First, look at the “Net Assessment” (It’s circled in red on this graphic he prepared.)
Second, go to your new revaluation notice. Look for the “current assessed value” (also circled in red). If you didn’t get the paper notice in the mail yet, you can find it now at VisionAppraisal.com.
Now compare those two numbers. Did the assessment rise by more than 9.2 percent? If so, then you should see the tax burden shift toward you (a likely tax hike). If not, you should see the burden shift away from you (a possible tax reduction).
Justin Elicker Graphic
Nota bene: Don’t be fooled by the “FY 2006 Assessment” number, which appears on the Vision Appraisal website and on the paper notices. That refers to the 2006 revaluation, which was never fully phased in. If you use that number, you might feel a false hope that your taxes will go down. The true comparison isn’t between 2011 and 2006, but between the 2011 and the partial phase-in of the 2006 revaluation, which is closer to the value from 2001.
For example, DeStefano offered figures on a house on Girard Avenue in the East Shore. The revaluation went down since 2006, but the homeowner’s value for tax purposes is rising. Below are the assessed values of the house (70 percent of the fair market value) over the past decade.
2001 Revaluation: $84,530
2006 Revaluation: $147,000
2010 Phase-in (40% of the increase between 2001 and 2006): $109,578
2011 Revaluation: $119,210
The final value was based on the house selling on Jan. 31, 2011 for $180,000. The house was valued at $170,000, so the assessed value is $119,210.
As you can see, the value dropped from 2006, but actually rose by 8.8 percent since the 2010 phase-in.
Theoretically, that person could see his or her taxes drop, because the increase in value was less than the average of 9.2 percent. That’s a tough assumption to make right now, however, the mayor cautioned last week. Theoretically, if the city needs to raise only the same amount of money as last year, it could accomplish that with a lower tax rate. But city spending could go up, and other sources of revenue could go down, causing the city to rely more heavily on property taxes.
Another X factor is whether aldermen will phase in the revaluation, as they did the last time around. One option is to fully implement the revaluation for those whose properties fell in value, while phasing in the revaluation for those whose property values rose, DeStefano said last week.
If the city wants to freeze the revaluation entirely, it would need state approval, he said.
What about businesses?
Some argue that businesses have paid an undue share of taxes over the past decade: Businesses never got a break on personal property taxes— business equipment (along with motor vehicles) has been reassessed every year. And commercial property values have risen more slowly than residential values, so businesses end up paying more taxes when the city delays implementation of revaluations.
As Elicker explains, your tax bill is entirely dependent on the size of the city budget aldermen decide upon in May. Aldermen set a budget, figure out how much other revenue there is, then decide how much tax revenue they need to raise. (In the video, Elicker uses the number $222,000,000. That refers to FY2011’s tax levy, or the total amount of revenue in the city budget that’s raised from property taxes.) Then they set a tax rate.
The current tax rate is 43.9 mills. That means taxpayers pay $43.90 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed value (that’s 70 percent of the value of your property). The mill rate may change, depending on what aldermen decide to do. Once they set the mill rate, you can multiply that by your tax assessment, and you’ll get your tax bill, which should be mailed out in June.
Meanwhile, DeStefano plans to address the topic at six public hearings:
● 7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 8 at Hillhouse High School, 480 Sherman Pky.
● 2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 10 at St. Bernadette’s Hall, 385 Townsend Ave.
● 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:
• East Rock Braces For Reval Sticker Shock
• Reval A Gift To Some, Will Sock Others