By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — The longer a town goes without reassessing property values, the more expensive the cost of doing a revaluation becomes.

That is according to Naples Assessor John O’Donnell. He spoke to the Naples Board of Selectmen recently. Also, O’Donnell will be on hand for an assessing workshop that is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. on Nov. 23.

Naples Chairman Jim Grattelo asked why the estimated cost for a revaluation had doubled in the span of a decade. 

“In 2009, we did a revaluation and you charged us roughly $110,000, give or take. This year, your proposal is $224,000,” Grattelo said. “My question is: what has gone up? We have roughly the same number of properties. Why has the price doubled? What more work is going to be involved in this reval versus the one done 9 or 10 years ago.”

O’Donnell explained. 

“Everything we do is more expensive: the wages, the health insurance. When we did the 2009 revaluation, the prior revaluation was in 2002. That was 7 years” difference, he said. “The passage of time has something to do with it. The market rates have something to do with it. And our overall class” has something to do with it. 

Later, during the conservation, O’Donnell talked about the importanceof keeping assessed values close to market values. He advocated for towns doing revaluations more often to achieve this and to keep down the cost of future revaluations. 

“If I wanted to keep assessed values really tight as a group of numbers, I would look for adjusting them every four or five years. That is a pretty good timeframe for a rural Maine town to react to sales. Five years, in my experience as an assessor, you keep things really tight in recognition of the market. I believe that six or seven years is more reasonable in terms of fairness and funding. But towns really don’t do that. They put it off and stretch it to every 10 years,” he said. 

“By the time we do Naples it is going to have been 13 or 14 years. The passage of time does have to do with the difficulty of the job,” O’Donnell said. “One of the things I would suggest is that we acted more frequently. We can do it cheaper, if we act more frequently. If the act within 10 years, it is the same [amount of] money. If it has been 20 years, the difficulty of the job goes up with the passage of time. The difficulty of the job goes up, the scope of the job goes up, with the passage of time.” 

Also, O’Donnell told the selectmen that the town was getting a good deal based on price per parcel.

The Town of Naples has 3,000 homes on its property tax list, he said. The price for Naples is slightly more than $60 per parcel, he said. 

“The price per parcel for Naples is the lowest of all the numbers we have given in five years. It is also the furthest out — it’s a job that we’re are looking at in 2023,” O’Donnell said. 

He cited the prices of towns that received revaluation in the past 10 years. 

• In 2009, Town of Poland, $67 a parcel

• In 2018, Town of Dixfield, $87 a parcel

• In 2018, Town of Boothbay, $72 a parcel

• In 2019, Town of Shapleigh, $67 a parcel

• In 2020, New Gloucester, $71 a parcel

• In 2021, Town of Jay, $74 dollar a parcel

• In 2021, Town of Turner, $71 per parcel

• In 2021, Town of Sebago, $85 per parcel 

Grattelo said that some towns are doing revaluation piecemeal: One class of properties at a time. 

“Some towns are doing segments. They are doing commercial property, coastal property, rentals. You don’t have to do an entire town reval,” Grattelo said.

O’Donnell disagreed, saying it creates unfair taxation of one group or property class of taxpayers.

“It is unjust discrimination. I am not saying that towns don’t do it. Let’s say you break your town into four sections, and do sections in four years. Which group goes first? Which groups pays higher taxes for four years? Then, which group pays higher taxes for three years and so on,” O’Donnell said. “I will agree with you that there are assessors out there” who will do revaluation that way.”

Naples Code Enforcement Officer Renee Carter said the Town of Harrison approached its revaluation over a period of time. 

“In Harrison, we factored shoreland zoning separately, and eventually residential rural caught up. First, we did shoreland zone and then we did residential rural,” Carter said. 

Chairman Grattelo said the topic of assessing should be discussed more thoroughly during a workshop. The town has put on the municipal calendar an assessing workshop for Monday, Nov. 23, starting at 5 p.m.