Left In Lowell

City Council Meeting 8/28, Part I/The Tax Rate Issue

by Mimi at 11:37 pm.

There were three major discussions during this past Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting. Of course, the first one being the motion to extend City Manager Bernie Lynch’s contract; the second issue was the unveiling of the selected developer’s Hamilton Canal plan and the third was the discussion on the City’s tax rate and property valuation.

We will address the first two in later posts but for now I want to focus on the tax rate/valuation issue. There were two motions on the topic that address those issues:

“Req. Mgr. if possible to set tax rate by 9/30 and Req. statNus of city’s property re-evaluation and new assessments.”

A lively discussion took place between the City Manager and Lowell resident and business owner Peter Markham, who had signed up to speak on these two topics. Mr. Markham has championed the cause of discussing property valuation and setting of the tax rate. Those who listen regularly to WCAP’s morning show, have heard him present these arguments before. I think Mr. Markham had the same discussion the last time the CM served as a co-host with George Anthes. I know that Mr. Markham did aggressively question Tom Moses, City CFO, on that topic when he was on that radio show.

During his appearance on Tuesday, Mr. Markham did ask the Manager why can Cambridge, who is similar to us in size and form of government, sets their tax rate much earlier than Lowell does?

CM Lynch responded, as he has in the past, that Cambridge has semi-annual tax bills while Lowell, as we all know, has quarterly tax bills. According to the web site MA Division of Local Services, the target dates for those municipalities on the semi- or quarterly-tax bill do differ; the not-later than dates are as follows:

Semi-Annual
Submit New Growth, August 15th
Submit Tax Re-cap, September 1st
Mail Tax Bills, September 30th

Quarterly
Submit New Growth, November 15th
Submit Tax Re-cap, December 1st
Mail Tax Bills, December 31st

As CM Lynch said, the City is way ahead of these dates. And those of you who are concerned that the tax rate will not be set prior to the November election; rest assured, it will be. With the budget already established, that should allow a preliminary tax estimate to be established prior to the election, although final approval from the State would likely occur later, and the first new tax bill would be issued, as usual, around the first of January.

According to the CM, the quarterly tax bill allows Lowell to include new growth in the tax base from the period of January 1st through June 30th in the next fiscal year’s budget, but that also delays the determination of total valuation, and hence eventually setting the tax rate. He said that Cambridge only uses valuations as of January 1st and therefore can establish the total valuation earlier in the year, and submit their tax data to the State, receiving a priority with the State to get an earlier approval of the tax rate.

The CM went on to say that the city of Lowell was expediting the valuation assessments this year and expected to have them complete in early October.

There has been subsequent discussion questioning the accuracy of the CM’s claims relative to the comparison of new growth valuation between Lowell and Cambridge. That may be due to the definition of new growth, which by some standards is the increase in new (or improved) property valuations in the prior calendar year, whereas CM Lynch was defining it as the additional growth in the first 6 months of the current calendar year. Inclusion of that additional tax base is beneficial to the other taxpayers as it increases the base on which the tax rate is calculated.

The CM also stated that with residential valuations currently lagging commercial valuation growth, it is likely that the average residential tax bill will be somewhat less of an increase than the 2.5% increase in the budget for local receipts. We should get a look at what they are in late October if the preliminary estimates are available as the city manager expects.

Another, issue that Mr. Markham has raised publicly a number of times is his belief that the commercial property is undervalued. That may be so, or it may be that the valuations are based on the revenue generation of the business, and not the sales price of the property.

I find people like Mr. Markham to be beneficial to this City; those individuals who are passionate, single-minded and persistent. At the end I think all he wants is good governance. I may not agree with his interpretation but I have to give him credit for making this topic part of the public discourse.

[Filed under Local politics, City Council] [link]

20 Responses to “City Council Meeting 8/28, Part I/The Tax Rate Issue”

Eleanor Rigby Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 1:01 am
So do you think Rita, Bud Lite or Armand will understand a word of what you have written, or for that matter Coxie? LOL LOL LOL !!!
Anonymous Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 7:13 am
Bernie, good job. You made the boston news. Transparent, lol ok? Nobody knew it was a city councilors cousin, wink wink lol. The more things change the more they stay the same!
Brooksie Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 8:39 am
Funny Anonymous…:) except didn’t the whole thing take place prior to Lynch coming on. Didn’t think Coxie would do something like that for that councilor. And from todays Sun it looks like it was a problem with the building commissioner. Oh right, he was never a real commissioner. I guess just another case of incompetence.
The Prince of Darkness Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Looks like the “fiscal watchdog” better start sniffing hydrants a little closer to home.
Bobby Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Its no need to fear, fiscal underdog is here.
joe Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Oh, come on! Rodney Elliot is the biggest city-employee basher on the Council.

There isn’t even a ghost of a chance City Hall did this as a favor to him.

Now, a screw-up - THAT sounds like City Hall.
The Prince of Darkness Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
So, let’s see him bash the employee(s) that screwed up. arf arf.
Bobby Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Stop lol lol. Underdog is here!
Mike Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 11:59 pm
He has “no knowledge” of his own cousin?

If this happened under Cox, it would be a GOB-fest here. Why not a peep?
Anonymous Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 12:56 am
Mike- Rest assured. They are working on it. Have to develop a convincing way to blame John Cox. I can’t believe they haven’t blamed Cox for the Kennedy assassination yet!
SickuvNegativity Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 7:43 am
ANonymous, the underassessment issue is clearly a glitch. I would not blame the prior or former administration.
However, it is this type of issues that highlights the need for better communication between the departments.
I put this right back on the homeowner on East Ave…Didn’t he ask himself at some point, “Gee, isn’t my tax bill is awfully low? I do hope the Assessor goes back and collects all property taxes back to the date that the certificate of occupancy was issued by the Building Commissioner.
Emabarassing all around, both the the homeowner for not doing the right thing and for the failure within the departments.
I do look forward to Mr. Camacho’s full report and a full report from the Assessor’s Office, as well as follow up plans for what will be donme in the future to prevent this type of situation from happening again.
Anonymous Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 8:09 am
Who let the dogs out arf arf!
Mimi Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 9:15 am
Mike: I, for one, have no knowledge of my cousins’ business! I am glad you have such intimate details of your relatives’ finances.

As for the rest of you, we all know that in Lowell politics is a bloody sport but to criticize an elected official for what his cousin my have done is ridiculous. So instead of having a discussion on our tax rate or the valuation process, we are delighting ourselves in schandenfreude.

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I have great respect for Councilor Elliott. And those of you, who have parachuted in to this site to give him a dig because you have something against the five/six and are still miffed because the previous CM was dismissed, are not making a convincing argument.

Your motives are very transparent to me.

Let’s give the Licensed Building Inspector an opportunity to present a report and let’s hear what the CM will do to prevent this in the future.
waittilnextyr Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 10:50 am
The real issue here is the failure in the process between the Building Department and the Assessors. The specific instance was likely caught this year by the tri-annual evaluation team. Can we assume there are no other properties that fall in this category? Presumably the team would have caught any errors, at least they did in this instance.

It is interesting to look at a sample of property valuations, especially in the commercial/industrial group. The main building at Cross Pointe has a valuation of about $85M, so that contributes about $1.7M to our tax base. It makes one wonder what tax base benefits could be obtained with commercial high-rise in the JAM area. There may be a growing need as Boston is expensive and becoming saturated once again. We need a State strategy to spread the business investment around to the second tier cities of the Commonwealth.

In checking a few other properties for valuation, I noted that 160 Merrimack St. is apparently valued at $0, except that a condo owner is taxed based on a single unit (160C). Is that all there is for that property? Do developers not pay taxes on these condominium conversions, just the tenants when they become occupied?
joe Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Quick poll: how many people have discussed how much they pay in property taxes with their cousin?
Eleanor Rigby Says:
September 1st, 2007 at 11:26 pm
So, let me try to respond to annonymous!

Which one? Good question.

I have my answers ready but because annonymous isn’t cleaver enough to pick a “handle” then how can I respond to annonymous(es)?

Annonymous is the same person, when it’s annon it it just cause he/she got tired or is that someone else?

Let me know, or just keep snipping.
waittilnextyr Says:
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:28 am
Mike, you said: “If this happened under Cox, it would be a GOB-fest here.”

Not to start a GOB-fest, but it appears it did occur under Cox. Not that I suspect either CM had anything to do with it, and probably the only reason it was corrected this year was due to the tri-annual re-val.
Mike Says:
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I don’t know anything about my cousins businesses or what they pay for taxes, but that’s not what Rodney said.

He said he has no knowledge of that property.

If my cousin lived in the same city as me, one that I’m a city councilor of, I think I would know of the property.

I don’t suspect either CM had anything to do with it either, but that’s never stopped folks before.
Mimi Says:
September 3rd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Mike:

I am sure he is referring to the assessment not the house itself. I am on my way to Donoghue headquarters. Hope that you are doing your fair share to elect her.
sarahminkz Says:
September 6th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Whoever gave this “story” to NECN has an obvious ax to grind with Councilor Elliott. Why wouldn’t they contact the Lowell Sun or someone local with the story? Or another city councilor for that matter. Because this was a witchhunt from the beginning. If you saw the NECN clip “anonymous” Councilor Elliott did not say he had “no knowledge of his cousin” nor did he say, the way you’re potraying it that, he “had no knowledge of the property”. He obviously meant that he had no knowlege of the assessment on the property. C’mon you’re splitting hairs to the point that you appear ridiculous. Do you know every one of your cousins assessments? I sure don’t. I couldn’t be bothered wasting my time looking them up. This was a mistake by the building and assessing departments. They both took responsibiity for their errors and have stated that Elliott had no part in it. What more do you want? This has been going on for years so it happened under Cox. Do any of you really think that Cox would have done a favor for Elliott? He was one of his biggest detractors. Plus, how does an lower assessment on a cousins property help him? It makes no sense.

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August 30, 2007

City Council Meeting 8/28, Part I/The Tax Rate Issue

20 Responses to “City Council Meeting 8/28, Part I/The Tax Rate Issue”

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