By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO – With the passage of a ballot measure to implement a property revaluation in Casco, this town’s elected officials are putting their ducks in a row in order to prepare for that.

According to Town Manager David Morton, the Casco Board of Selectmen should set aside several months for discussions to fine-tune the referrals for proposal (RFPs) so the board can award the property revaluation job to a firm.

Likely, the actual revaluation process would begin by summer 2012 – if the board awards the bid this spring, Morton said.

Selectmen should aim to “have a company selected by April,” he said. He added that gives assessors a few months to prepare for the revaluation.

“We need them up and running during the summer months to get access to the large number of summer properties we have in Casco,” Morton said.

He estimated the complete property revaluation would take a year, and be wrapped up by April or May 2013.

The town would be able to use the new information in its calculations when committing to taxes in August 2013, he said.

“It sounds like it is really a long ways away,” he said, after outlining some approximate dates for moving forward with the process of choosing a company to perform the property valuations.

“I would imagine it is going to be a topic of discussion for a couple months,” Morton said.

He predicted the process of interviewing companies will be lengthy. Also, there will be a number of questions the selectmen will want to answer when deciding what to include in the RFPs.

“I guarantee that no matter how good the firm is, and how good of a job they do, not everyone is going to be happy with the tax equalization process,” Morton said.

On Nov. 8, residents voted, 572 to 552, to spend $290,000 from the Undesignated Balance Fund to pay for a thorough revaluation of property in Casco.

The revaluation question landed on the ballot through the citizens’ signature petition process.