Westport’s Board of Selectmen, trying to ease the financial pain of residents caught up in the building permit backlog in the assessor’s office, has approved a plan allowing some homeowners to defer payment of taxes owed to the town.
The plan, approved at a lengthy meeting Wednesday night, would allow property owners with a total incremental tax of $5,000 or more and with a home with an updated gross assessed value not exceeding $750,000 to defer taxes for an additional year beyond April 2005.
Those taxpayers owing less than $5,000 will be granted an additional payment period only upon filing of an affidavit and a showing of unusual financial or other circumstances.
The policy adopted by the board said “every effort will be utilized by the board to preserve the confidentiality within the limits of the law, including referring to filings by property address.”
At Selectman John Izzo’s request, the board voted separately on a provision of the policy providing for 18 percent interest to be charged if payments are not made in a timely manner.
Izzo opposed the provision, but First Selectwoman Diane G. Farrell and Selectman Carl Leaman voted for it.
Among those opposing the additional deferment period beyond April 2005 was former Board of Assessment Appeals member Garson Heller.
He argued that other taxpayers, in effect, have been subsidizing homeowners who made improvements on their homes but have yet to be charged additional taxes and should not bear additional financial burdens on their behalf.
The permit backlog was discovered in the assessor’s office in February and led to Farrell postponing the Oct. 1, 2003 revaluation.
The state subsequently permitted the town to put off its revaluation for up to three years. Westport decided to conduct a physical revaluation of all real property and hopes to complete it by Oct. 1, 2005 but no later than Oct. 1, 2006.
It is unclear from the article and also to me why the Board of Selectmen decided to allow extension of the payment for those taxpayers whose home is assessed (in 1999) at $750 thd and whose incremental assessment is more than $5 thd. It would be interesting to know how many taxpayers are in that universe and how much in revenue the town is deferring. I agree with the comments attributed to Mr. Heller, in that the majority of taxpayers have borne the financial burden of those whose assessments were understated. I do not see any reason for that subsidy to continue for one moment longer than absolutely necessary.
Charlie Haberstroh, Board of Finance
Both Charlie and Garson are responding as if this assessment problem was the homeowners’ fault. It certainly was not their fault. The Town screwed up—big time!! We are getting the money and I think we can be understanding about the time frame.
God bless Wally Meyer. While the back taxes obviously must be collected, the hardline approach reflects a real blame-the-victim mentality.
It’s not like all of these residents wouldn’t have paid their taxes if they were sent a correct tax bill. Some claim that they should have known that their bills were low – but we’ve all seen increased property taxes driven by the escalating budgets. One can forgive residents for not realizing that their tax increases weren’t as large as they should have been!
“Town Hall” screwed up. The town needs to accommodate those being asked to, in a manner of speaking, pay for the screw-up (beyond the many over-taxed residents who have already paid for the town’s backlog mismanagement).
Finally, on who’s desk does this buck stop? The reval backlog is arguably (depending on how one defines it) a mistake that was the equivalent of 5% (or more) of an annual town budget. That is a monumental error that shouldn’t have missed ANYONE’S radar, in Town Hall
Unfortunately, the reval problem has continued to be blurred with the Ryan ‘problem’ (as it were). This is an obfuscation of the situation – clearly one has nothing to do with the other (though it is convenient for some to see that the two are constantly blurred).
Clearly, the backlog has everything to do with town mismanagement. Maybe someday, someone will step up to the plate and take responsibility. But I’m not holding my breath.
I hear a lot of “we can’t let this happen again” from some quarters. But guess what? We shouldn’t have let it happen the first time.
Chris Grimm
RTM District 5
For sure it was the town that screwed up on the tax bills—no question about it. However, the residents in question did improve their homes, did know how much those improvements cost and did know that their taxes would go up. During the period when they should have received the higher tax bills and paid higher taxes, they didn’t and saved the money, while the rest of the taxpayers paid more than they should have. It may represent a large amount of money today to those individuals, but it represents funds that were in effect saved and annually 0.2% of 70% of the value of the improvement.
While I believe that the situation should never have occurred, I don’t believe those affected are the victims—the real victims are those taxpayers who paid more taxes than they should have over the past four years—for no reason, except for the incompetency of those involved.
Charlie Haberstroh