The Westport Representative Town Meeting (RTM) tonight approved postponement of the towns real property revaluation to 2005.
It acted by unanimous vote after First Selectwoman Diane G. Farrell, in a reversal of her previous position, promised an independent, third-party audit of the assessorҒs office.
It was discovery of a backlog in building permits in the assessors office Җ some going back to 1998— that prompted Farrell to announce March 4 that she would seek to postpone the revaluation.
Since then, Gov. John G. Rowland has signed a law enabling Connecticut municipalities, by action of their legislative bodies, to postpone revaluations for up to three years.
Members of the Board of Finance and of the RTM Finance Committee had urged Farrell to conduct a full audit of the assessor’s office in the wake of the backlog discovery.
But until now she had resisted, saying she was not sure what such an audit would accomplish.
“I think the way to ensure that it will not happen again is to have a third party come in and do a rehash of what happened,” Farrell told the RTM.
“We need to have safeguards in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again, no matter who is here.”
Members of the Reval Working Group appointed by Farrell have urged that the town conduct a full physical revaluation instead of the less accurate statistical update.
The resolution approved by the RTM calls for the revaluation to be postponed to at least Oct. 1, 2005, but no later than Oct. 1, 2006.
Farrell said she was confident with the hiring of William Gaffney, currently the assessor in Milford, that the town would be able to conduct a fair and accurate revaluation. He starts work in Westport June 21.
“It is our intent to get this done as expeditiously and accurately as possible,” she said.
Farrell said that problems in the assessor’s office that led to the need for postponement of the revaluation had caused deep distress in her administration and she was determined to fix them.
“No one should think that this has not had a profound effect on this administration,” she said, adding that no town official had taken lightly what occurred.
(Editor’s Note: The editor of WestportNow is also Moderator of the RTM.)
I am somewhat confused. I was under the impression, obviously mistaken, that the revaluation was postponed due to egerous errors on the part of the firm hired to due the revaluation. I would like to know the real reason for the postponement….backlog of building permits or poor work by the firm engaged to undertake the revaluation. If it is the latter, are we going to pay for the poor job there-by increasing our tax burden unnecessarily; if the former what does that tell us about the manner in which this town is managed?