Special Board of Aldermen 11-15-2021 Page 9
know, things may be leveling off or if they are going up more so that we're reflective because the State will look at values
from October to October. So if we're not as accurate as possible by the time they do this study if things are going up
rapidly, we could be instead of at 100%, we could be at 95 or 94 right when you're starting to get your first equalization.
So our goal is to really try to encompass that time period around 4/1 before it and after to make sure that we're accurate
of all the different classes and we have the market support to show that so that when equalization comes out in the fall,
our valuations in the spring are somewhat reflective and mostly reflective of that equalization study. That gives you a
good starting point for any change that occurs. A lot of communities as Richard said, they do it within the five years but
some do them within two or three. They're allowed to. Towns like Portsmouth, and Seabrook, and other communities -
Bedford they have been doing them possibly in the third year because their increases or their changes were dramatic.
So it was a dramatic change up or down. A smaller, quicker interim analysis can be done and allowed by the State to
further adjust things if you need. So you don't have to be locked in to these values for that time period where certain
towns and cities take advantage of that and then address something before the five year occur so you don't see a
dramatic increase like some of the cities and towns. Just a little bit of information for you.
Alderman Lopez
| just want to make sure I'm understanding. Director Kleiner is basically saying the study is still ongoing like the cakes
not done so don't mess with it. And if for example we looked at a population and said okay, we're concerned about the
burden shifting over to seniors - our elderly population and we try to do something to manage that while the study is
going, it could skew the results. And then if | understand the third comment, it's also we're not trapped with this
valuation. It's likely to be an ongoing process. So if we do start to see a sudden abrupt shift, then that would trigger
another evaluation on a smaller scale but it would be correct. Am | getting close?
Mike Tarello, Vice President
Yeah, I'd say you're close.
Alderman Lopez
Good for me.
Richard Vincent, Chief Assessor
One thing | can add in equalization reports that we get from the State that we do, we look at the different classes of
property. We can even look at different neighborhoods. I've done that myself and looked at different neighborhoods and
different types of properties like comparing cape style homes to ranch style homes, for looking at residential properties,
commercial properties. We're breaking it down into neighborhoods to see if there's a large shift in one specific type of
property compared to the others. I've seen that in the past where lakefront properties were going up tremendously while
all the surrounding properties not lakefront properties were not increasing. So there may be an instance where we need
to adjust that one type of property be it lakefront property or you have properties that decline rapidly that had in the past
certain condo complexes that became undesirable for one reason or another and they dropped rapidly. So you have to
keep, again, the fairness, and the equity, and proportionality which | didn’t mention between all these different types of
property.
So if we see overall that the equalization ratio is 90% but we have one class of property, or one neighborhood, or
whatever it is at a much different rate, then we would need to adjust that one type of property basically immediately to
bring it proportioned with all the other types of property in the community. So that may be done in between revaluations.
The other class of property may be fine in that five year period between revaluations, but we have to adjust that one
class of property because something affected that in a typical fashion.
Mike Tarello, Vice President
Yes, that's true. We've assisted communities in doing like a partial assessment, evaluating all of the data, and finding
that there was spotted areas and they've just corrected those areas. So for the next equalization, everything was pretty
much equitable and on par with the ratios.
Alderman Klee
Thank you. | guess | just want to kind of reiterate something that Alderman Lopez had said when he talked about the
conversation about exemptions and so on. | know we've had a lot of people that have stood up and said that we need to
