is Don Mackey ready Don's ready you're good afternoon welcome Board of assessors meeting um on June 26 2024 here at 382 North Main Street at 4:30 p.m here with members Mar gini Hayden Smith director Diane Bishop uh chairman Martin Gruden and assistant to the director Carrie Underwood uh in in cordance with mgl chapter 38 section 20 elcat tapes our meetings uh and audio and video tapes our meetings and we tape our own meetings and no one here from the public is viewing in person we'll start with a review of the minutes from the meeting from May 29th from Marilyn gini Mr chairman I have reviewed the minutes of our meeting of May 29th I do find them in order and move that they be accepted great I don't believe a discussion uh make a motion to accept am minutes a second that all those in favor I I uh start off with administrative items warrants uh fiscal 2025 real estate warrant amount of 24 billion 24 million 20 84771 they're all underneath y okay yeah oh yeah here they are so this is the preliminary warrant for the real estate for fiscal 25 and everyone should have received their tax bills in their mailbox today or will be receiving them uh but they have been mailed for July 1 right yes they needed to be in mailboxes prior to July 1 okay there you go uh FYI 2025 elimary CPA warrant in the amount of 183,000 861 97 and also for fiscal 25 personal property warrant amount of $844,000 8861 and 96 and then we have a uh supplemental number two real estate warrant from fiscal 24 15007 and 31 what is this for that is for any home that received their occupancy that was um completed during the fiscal year there was only two this time okay fiscal 24 supplement CPA 1% of that $15.7 great um moving on the reports uh 2024 motor vehicle excise payment for May 4 7,216 28 good amount yes and I notice that accountant for June 4 15 2238 that is for the uh supplemental correct of 2024 real estate and CPA combined moving along to the la3 sales report so on one page um you'll probably notice first one is very low assessment to sale ratio but that was a chapter land property and it was also a commercial sale property so it's also the business component also um but it will be reviewed to make sure that our value is consistent with what it should be we all know that property um we have a bunch in the 70 percentile uh values are still increasing ortion say increasing but they're still selling above assessment M we haven't done the analysis about the increase got a lot of land sales in the neighborhood that closed and I had a question on one yeah the 109 one um that was that a new house it's a half a new house and it got stopped and it was a short sale because they were going to be they could not complete the home so someone else bought it is that arms length in your M mine so it would be in our mind we have it assessed at 50% complete at 315 and they paid 290 so the 1.09 oh I mean the value is pretty consistent but because it's a short sale we could code that out so the value um that was a brand new home it was a new home being built and it's just studded right now there's no Plumbing in it or anything it's winter tight on the exterior and everything on the inside all work stopped okay I know it listed higher yes it was like 6 665 yeah okay complete complete I gotta and it's a very strange lot yes um condo very close and the others um and good good land sale numbers I don't know what's else to say about that yeah um I don't oh I did have one it was uh the very first one that arms length too the very 74 one that commercial that is commercial that is a commercial I have that un Aster on it it is an arms length sale it was on the MLS it was listed um there's got to be good amount of work to that to change it from the use that it was to the new future use which will be a retail store from my understanding oh really yeah okay look at that a little bit and then the one that's two two more down um that was another commercial sale yes that's incredible for private sale mhm um and that's someone who is already in business here and I'm assuming they're just moving their business to this location instead of renting oh really mhm yeah there's just three tenants there and uh the rest of Shaker Road can't believe that sound um and I know the seller and uh he's uh celebrating yeah I bet retiring and celebrating at the same time okay any questions uh Hayden Marilyn on the sales nope no sir all right um moving on to uh building BS so for the month of May we had no new dwellings and at at the end of May 31st we had five new buildings year to date but I'm very happy to report that and you'll see it next month here it is June 26th we have now nine new dwelling permits that were taken out and two commercial um buildings taken out and one permit to finish the half completed house that we were just referring to um I I have a feeling the reason why we're getting them all at once is building codes change July 1 and I hear that there is going to be an impact to due to the new building codes and this is not East Long Meadow this is state state I believe it's state is it a her thing um I don't know but I heard from one of the builders they're trying to hurry up and get more building permits in because it's going to add a good amount of money to each Construction Plus be environmental item I'm sure our Building Commissioner could easily explain it to me and well all those lot sales I would imagine they're creating a lot of the yeah probably yeah did the road go in I it is okay so but this one is you know not I mean there's a lot of building permits but even I'm on there you are yeah I didn't look certainly not Sol oh there you are that safe thing mhm nice how they put a high amount there but uh I think that's it for building reports lot of them building on to director's update so uh building permits we our data collector has gone out and completed all of our building permits along with my myself and our assistant assessor uh kianne we have been reviewing all the open permits um since the beginning of June there's just a handful to follow up and Kian and I will be out in the field on Friday just to confirm the ones that we want to make sure that the completion of the property is as near to the June 30th date um our goal is to enter all of the data into to our C system so they will become part of our fiscal 25 values so we'll be starting with um any new growth uh any new improvements to the property will start our new FY 25 value base um for our FY 25 personal property while our building permit inspections were taking place we also were able to visit the new businesses to have a personal property asset inspection uh so that has been completed not entered yet we were notified that the fiscal 25 telephone Telegraph and pipeline values which are valued through the commissioner of Revenue they were made available on June 15th for the assessor review the assessors do have the right to appeal any values and I do have that documentation we'll be reviewing um shortly um ites does give us what the valuations and the growth of each of these centrally valued companies and as required by Department of Revenue the utility valuations we have to do a 50/50 blend and that will be completed by our consultant uh due to the fact that we're in uh it's a fiscal 25 value fiscal 25 doesn't start until July 1 so it will happen after that but they'll be readily available prior to our um values before we have to set values um the RFP for valuation Services the town manager um signed the multi-year contract for valuation services this will take us from fiscal 25 through fiscal 29 the contract was awarded to Bishop and Associates who has been our valuation consultant since 20 8 um one thing I just want to bring to the board's attention and I don't know if they want to consider any changes to the way that we do things but after doing approximately 500 building permits we did have one taxpayer who was um a little bit upset that we didn't send them notice saying that we were coming out to their home and they have suggested that we change our process so we notifi taxpayers by mail of an inspection to be completed um as I explained to him that sometimes the timing is an issue we don't know when we're going to get our data collector in uh then there's the cost of preparing uh paper envelopes Postage and we would need to adjust our budget if the board feels that this is a direction um to go in we also have the ability of doing a robo call saying you know but the robo call only goes to people who have signed up for the robo calls and probably a small percentage of those people had a building permit so um if the board you know gives it some thought and would like us to change the way that we do these things we do have it on our town website not everyone looks at our town website we do notify the police department um you might want to put on the town Forum because more than that one person complained on the town Forum oh I don't see the town Forum so uh yeah quite a few people complain about that process of just showing up and a lot of anger out there on it I think as a homeowner if you just showed up at my door I'd be upset my German Shepherd would be more upset than M I would so I think we can add the town form that's fine yeah if it's all right if it's all right with the administrator I know there's like rules of what you post but um I think the town would like to see that who would be responsible for doing that you or I so when you say the town Forum that's a Facebook yeah okay it's not not a town sanctioned anything right right so but I mean to remind us that town sanction either you know what I mean we just that's independent also so we put stuff in there but just a thought for the next time yep so we are done this time around other than Friday Ken and I will be going out just doing follow-ups but I don't think as I mentioned to the chief of police that we would not be knocking on doors but if we did find that there was something that we had to address I would certainly knock on a door as a town employee um so that's what I have for the director's report okay thank you for that di you're welcome uh moving on to fiscal 25 La 13A report so this is a report that we have to have in the DL Gateway saying any um omitted or revised um properties that we tax but we have none and you can see that it says with our tax rate so this is now a requirement regardless this is what we're looking at no it's not it's not okay that okay that's La 19 right there hold that thought Marilyn I will so regardless if we had a revised or omitted assessment or not we have to submit the form whether putting the numbers in or checking off the boxing we don't have any okay uh then we have proposed 2024 equalize valuation so the board of assessors have the right to review the equalized valuation and if you are unhappy with them you have the right to contest it um generally they take our inum uh our la5 which is our inim adjustment and our sales and they determine where our medians are on each class of property and that pretty much gets defaulted into the la9 and so last year we had um we all of our classes of property we had the medium of approximately 95% um the only one that is different is personal property which is at 100% um and it does show our new growth and our new growth has always been a little bit higher but we may find that number coming down when they're looking at the past history but now we're going to start hopefully building back up so if you're looking at a three-year average naturally that will fluctuate as we've had some down years just so the board is aware that eqv uh the equalized valuation are used for the basis of comparison um to use in allocations to Aid public libraries the calculation Chapter 70 funding reimbursement of school construction projects certain cherry sheet charges um amongst other things that it the town um receives money for so it's always important to review the information and in my review these numbers match everything that we have been submitting to the state so um the only thing that they always say is if you have um any chapter 121a properties um that could have an effect because they can't calculate that in and the only one of those properties so the only 121a property that we have left and it's only one on our books is Brownstone which is um 110 Summers road but someone like the City of Springfield MGM is a 121a so that they may want to have that included in with their reports so um I did not think that there was any issue but I want the board to make sure that um they feel the same way the appeals must be filed onor before August 10th what did our medium Stills try Shake Up Shake Up to last year so last year we were down at I it was either 87 or 89 and we brought it all up to 95 and which is where because that you have to bring your values to where you're going to be for fiscal 24 and then that has the impact so I think she means the median prices yes the medium sales I'm sorry um 3 something 372 37 3725 or something like that the prior year was like 339 yeah was what was the prior 39 and then it went to 372 and it's probably going to be close or over 400 yeah and our value is here that's where the billion number I got from before and that's based on us doing 95% last year correct Y correct all righty so did did did the board feel that any appeal was necessary or do you feel that because we did set all of our assessment to sale ratios at approximately 95 and that's what they're telling us um I have to believe that this is an accurate yes statement you need a vote on that uh if you would like to I would yeah I think we're good at accep good Marland doesn't like their vote all right moving on to uh fiscal 25 telephone Telegraph and pipe line valuations and growth yes and this is again you have the right to appeal any of these values historically in the past we as a board of assessors know that we do not have the capacity and the money to enlist someone to do this right and if we were going to contest it we would be then spending a an large sum to have them valued and then to appeal it um so we've always accepted the commissioner of revenues values because they have their experts who value the properties so actually owns the telephone polls if it's owned by Verizon then it's Verizon it there are several telephone companies so it depends on who you know what city or town it's in and and who owns it but the telephone poles in East Long Meadow are owned by Verizon they are yes okay or the telephone poles I thought I would think in here all those wires are on all the poles you know what I mean yeah well point the PO have been here before Verizon yeah I believe well I think the polls were here since they started the PO probably then then I stand corrected May electric company might own so the town didn't put them up the town doesn't own them I cannot say yes or no the town doesn't own all right so somebody put them up got to be Verizon then the wires can be but I don't know if Verizon doesn't repair the polls uh National Grid repairs the polls I I know no I think a broken is done by the state and national g some yes they have their linemen who do that so so if somebody hits a telephone pole it depends on who owns the pole some poles are jointly owned some poles are owned by Verizon some are owned National Grid there we go so National Grid owns a telephone pool because same well it's a utility pole so they can okay right so that so if the if if one utility owns the pole the other utility pays a fee to put their wires on that pole so they have sort of cross agreements as far as sharing polls but all the utilities run on those poles so that's why we that space they ran the wire y thank you sorry I was just wondering one the polls guess I really don't have a good handle on who owns the polls which is why I let the commissioner of Revenue do the valuation but this is this is Statewide accepted for each town so we're not fighting that yeah at any moment and you can see by and I did try to provide that the the growth this year between the three telephone companies that well actually two telephone companies that we can actually no three I'm looking at growth let me just look at because we have a $5,000 exemption any um company that is under regardless if it's centrally valued under 5 ,000 in total value we do not tax so out of the four telephone um companies that are centrally valued for East Long Meadow we can only tax two of them uh which would be MCI Metro access um transmission services and Verizon New England the other two fall below our exemption threshold so like AT&T nobody so if I'm not mistaken AT&T ended up going to be Verizon Wireless so that is a different um we have 508s these are 505 use codes so we do have um like four or five different wireless companies and we do have personal property but that's not part of the centrally valued okay so the new grow that we'll be able to pull from that is like $47,000 it's very at Value so times our tax rate you know the actually growth dollars are very small and tenaco pipeline is $2,400 in value so the sell Towers like the new One MH we don't tax them no we tax them but it's to the cell tower the whoever owns that that is not is that like personal property yep y yep so any cell tower like we have a new one on Meadow Brook Road so in all actuality because it's on his uh on the taxpayer's land he is taxed for the PO the the monopole and then he must have his agreement with the cell phone company which I thought Verizon and they make you know they pay the difference whether it pay it to him so he can pay the taxes or I I don't know what their agreement is but I know we tax it thank you so I any polls and wirar questions now I'm quiet from here on in I'm sorry curiosity I know next time someone hits a telephone maryn's going to follow see who finds uhhuh and that is I believe it's a way to end it you know yeah uh uh that's it for Open Session you want to to say when our next meeting is before we go ju 24th yep July 24th on a Wednesday 4:30 Wednesday right here uh I make a motion to go into executive session to review motor vehicle excise and boat abatements a value valuation issue an ATB update and to record our votes uh take a roll call vote Hayden Smith yes Marilyn gini yes Martin gon yes