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  2. Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 4/30/2019 - P4

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 4/30/2019 - P4

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 22:40
Document Date
Tue, 04/30/2019 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 04/30/2019 - 00:00
Page Number
4
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__043020…

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 4

sales that have occurred from October 1°" through September 30" to determine if the sale is qualified or
unqualified. This is very important because only qualified sales are used in the analysis. Qualified sale is
basically an arm’s length transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller. We are also constantly
analyzing data. We know that the market continued to climb during and even after the 2018 statistical update.
We are working on sales to prepare for the ratio study to determine if a specific type of property is climbing more
rapidly than others. If there are data corrections that need to be made or if in fact the sale is just an outlier.

Ok, the abatement process: Filing an abatement begins after the December bills are made. The deadline to file
for an abatement is March 1* following the final notice of tax which is your December tax bill. Abatements are
processed generally in the order that they are submitted to our office; an exception to that would be if 3 or 4
people in the same condo complex or something applied we would process those together, it is just more
efficient. While comps from tax payers are considered, assessors perform an analysis to determine what the
market value is on the property as of April 1* of that tax year. Communication is on-going when the assessor is
reviewing the abatement submitted. This would include scheduling an inspection of the subject property,
reviewing the data, performing a sales analysis, letting the tax payer know staff's findings and letting he or she
know what the recommendation will be and when it will be presented to the Board of Assessors.

The Board of Assessors have the final say as to grant or deny all abatements. Once we have determined the
market value, and we have received the equalization ratio from the Department of Revenue Administration, that
number is used to equalize the market value. | hand it back over to Kim.

Ms, Kleiner

So why did we tell you all that? | think it’s very important that we give you an accurate view of what is happening
downstairs every day. It is extremely busy, you have a group of people that are working extremely hard to get
information and applications processed and reviewed. And while we know that it is important to create
sustainable change and to handle the items that were identified in the management plan, we also know that we
have to complete the statutory requirements by the department. Here is an Assessing Improvement Plan time-
line that was actually created somewhat after the management audit was prepared. This is very high level, some
of these things we have already completed to date; and some of these are still a work in process. Some items
such as in software upgrades and the updating of AssessPro you will see why way out — August of 2019 and
August of 2020. And we will explain more later as we go on, these dates have been very strategically chosen.

So |’d like to walk through the conclusions and this may look familiar to you, this is right out of the Management
Audit Plan and | thought it would be easier if we take the major recommendations and we kind of walk through
where we are on each one if that is acceptable to the Board.

The first was to re-establish the Administrative Services Director. Legislation was submitted by Mayor Donchess
as you all know and approved by the Board of Aldermen on 4/19 as amended by the Board. Funding is in the
proposed Fiscal 2020 budget. The second was the elimination of the Chief Assessor position and at that point
the Mayor felt it was important that the Administrative Services Director will direct the operations of the Assessing
Department working with the Chief Financial Officer and that right away something needed to happen. We
needed to not wait, we needed to start observing the current operating state and creating and implementing an
efficiency improvement plan. And | think we did that. The day after the Management Audit Review was
presented to you folks, John Griffin and myself were in Assessing; there was no hesitation and we have clear
direction by the Mayor.

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 4/30/2019 - P4

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