Property Revaluation

Every four or five years, according to state law, all town properties, whether residential, commercial, or industrial, must be re-assessed to determine its value as of Oct. 1 of the revaluation year under state law.

Last month, the time had come for Westbrook residents to once again learn the outcome of this year’s revaluation process.

Town Assessor Pam Fogarty said that the town and its contractor, Vision Appraisal, sent out revaluation notices to town property owners, with the new property values, on Nov. 18. Informal hearings with owners disputing the new values and representatives of Vision Appraisal, the firm doing the town-wide property revaluation, began last month and will continue this month.

“After these informal hearings are done, new notices will go out to owners who came to the informal hearings,” said Fogarty.

These second notices will also list the property’s new value which could, as a result of the hearing information, be adjusted up, down, or stay the same.

Property owners who are not satisfied with the outcome of this informal process can make an appointment for a hearing before the town’s Board of Assessment Appeals. The BAA Assessment Hearings will not begin until after Monday, Feb. 20.

The sum of the new property values generated by the revaluation process will be the basis of the new Grand List of Taxable Property that Town Assessor Fogarty will certify by Wednesday, Feb. 1.

School Windows

The project to replace the high school and Goodwin School windows, though nearly complete, left one task not part of the project’s original scope left undone. That task was to replace the bank of windows in the high school cafeteria facing McVeagh Road and a door in that space.

The task was left until the end because the original project budget did not include the full cost to replace this window wall. However, effective project management has left some funds in the project budget. Unfortunately, the remainder is not enough to complete the cafeteria window replacement.

So the School Building Committee came to the Board of Education to ask if they would approve transferring $30,000 currently in the BOE’s capital maintenance fund to this last high school window wall task. The BOE voted to agree to the transfer.

So last week, Superintendent of School Pat Ciccone and Business Manager Lesley Wysocki asked the Board of Selectmen to also approve a transfer of $30,000 from the school district’s capital maintenance fund to the windows project.

The BOS agreed.

Now the request to appropriate $30,000 for the windows project by transferring the same amount from the BOE’s capital maintenance fund will go to a town meeting for action.

The work involved in the task includes replacement of the windows, some excavation and masonry re-pointing work, and the replacement of an exterior door.