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02/16/2016 12:30 PMA slight drop in the town’s 2015 Grand List of Taxable Property Values compared to 2014 means there is no tax base growth to offset proposed town budget increases this year—and the exact values are still uncertain because the disastrous roll-out of the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicle’s (DMV) new computer system assigned the wrong zip codes to more than 60,000 vehicles state-wide.
Town assessors throughout Connecticut are required to certify the new Grand List of Taxable Property each Jan. 31. This list sums the values as of Oct. 1 of the prior year for taxable town real estate, personal property, and motor vehicles minus any tax credits like those assigned to the elderly. The Town of Old Saybrook’s new net Grand List for 2015 as certified by Assessor Norm Wood is $2,211,564,332.
Wood said that the town’s shoreline properties showed a modest increase in value of about five percent, but other town properties’ values were flat, so overall, town real estate values were up slightly. However, court settlements between the town and several commercial and industrial property owners reduced the overall value of town real estate. The settlements were of property owner challenges to the town’s new valuation of these properties in the 2013 full revaluation.
Commercial and industrial properties’ value by state law is based on the property owner’s income (revenue minus expenses) from the property rather than comparable sales prices, as in the residential market. In the full property revaluation the town did in 2013, the assessor’s office assigned values to town commercial and industrial properties, but in a still-soft economy, several commercial/industrial property owners challenged the town’s new valuation because their parcels’ income was lower than the town had projected. Due to a state court backlog, those valuation challenges were not settled—and the values carried on the town’s Grand List for those properties reduced—until late in 2015.
The second key factor affecting this year’s Grand List is errors in vehicle town and value assignments made by the DMV’s new computer system. Errors and mistakes made by the new system include the incorrect assignment of zip codes to thousands of vehicles state-wide, incorrect model year entries, and other errors that together impact the value of all towns’ motor vehicle grand lists this year.
Normally, the state’s contractor Quality Data receives the motor vehicle listings data from DMV each December. Quality Data then converts the DMV list into a computerized database form that town assessors use to send out personal property bills. But this year, the DMV listing was peppered with errors.
Wood offered an early glaring example of these errors.
“Last year’s town Grand List listed 89 M&J buses at a total value of $1,575,275. This year’s 2015 list from DMV had a total of 302 buses, 213 more than last year, at $4,126,975 more in value,” said Wood.
He knew immediately that something was wrong. So he started to investigate. What he found was that the new DMV system had assigned all of the buses M&J owns and uses in Connecticut to the company’s home office address in Old Saybrook. So other Connecticut towns that last year had received personal property tax payments for M&J buses used there were left wondering what happened to those buses and the personal property tax revenue they generate. Now they know. The buses’ values were carried on Old Saybrook’s list.
The Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers, in a Jan. 21 letter to DMV Commissioner Andres Ayala, estimated that 60,000 to 90,000 vehicles were assigned incorrect addresses or town tax codes by the new DMV software.
According to DMV, the zip code assignment error for bus company buses is being corrected, but other errors that led vehicles to be assigned the wrong values or to the wrong town will take longer to correct. With personal property tax bill mailings planned for June each year, the question is whether the errors will be corrected by then or not. DMV officials have told town assessors it could take up to a year to sort out all of the errors.
Top Ten Real Estate Taxpayers
Old Saybrook Associates LLC $18,550,200
Max’s Place LLC $16,217,900
Saybrook Point Marina LLC $14,893,100
Haviland Nancy P $ 8,009,450
Two Seventy Three Water St LLC $ 7,828,800
Cubesmart LP $ 6,772,400
Gladeview LLC $ 6,714,300
Water III LLC $ 6,141,300
Mill Rock Leasing $ 5,736,300
WS Old Saybrook Realty LLC $ 5,097,900