9/13/10 Town Meeting Handout

The following handout was distributed at the Special Town Meeting on September 13, 2010:

The legal voters of the Town of Cavendish, in the County of Windsor, are hereby notified and warned to meet at the Cavendish Town Elementary School in Proctorsville, Vermont at seven (7:00) o'clock Monday evening the thirteenth (13th) day of September 2010 to transact the following business:

Article 1: To see if the legal voters of the Town of Cavendish will approve of a town-wide appraisal update to be prepared for the 2011 Grand List. A town-wide update is not a full reappraisal with universal internal inspections, but it does include a thorough field review and updating of value tables and it would allow the grand list to be readjusted to reduce disparities and to adjust market conditions.

Dated at Cavendish, State of Vermont this 9th day of August, 2010

Information Regarding Article 1

The general purpose of a town-wide appraisal update is to closely examine appraised values for all of the properties on the town’s grand list in order to reassess those values currently listed and take into consideration current market values. The major goals of the reassessment are to reduce disparities between classes of properties and have those reassessed values reflect, as accurately as possible, fair market values.

The State of Vermont utilizes two widely used measures for evaluating a town’s assessment practices: the “coefficient of dispersion” and the “common level of appraisal.” The appraisal update is being suggested at this time because the statistics regarding the state of Cavendish’s current grand list of values are such that:

1) The Coefficient of Dispersion or COD (average amount of deviation of values from fair maker value) has increased to 19/33% and
2) The Common Level of Appraisal or CLS (average of all values as compared to fair market values has, since the last (2006) full town-wide appraisal, dropped from 107.17% to 91.75%.

The Vermont State Department of Taxes, Division of Property Valuation and Review (PVR) conducts an annual Equalization Education Property Values (EEPV) study of each town’s grand list to determine how accurately the town’s grand listing of property values match up with what they determine to be fair market values. A town with a CLS of less than 80% or a COD greater than 20% must reappraise. In the words of PVR itself, ‘In 1997 32 VSA section 4041a was enacted. It requires that a municipality with a CLA less than 80% or a COD greater than 20% must reappraise and will be ordered to do so by the director of PVR. If a municipality does not make a reasonable attempt to reappraise its grand list, all state funding to the municipality can be withheld until it complies with its reappraisal requirement.” As a result of the last annual EEPV study (December 2009) and recent real estate market trends, we have been informed that Cavendish should expect to complete a full reappraisal requirement for the 2011 Grand List.

The Vermont State Department of Property, Valuation and Review has a rule that an update can completed if it occurs within five years of the last full reappraisal. Since the last full reappraisal in the Town of Cavendish was done in 2006, this would allow us to complete an update of values for 2011. If we wait until 2012, we will be required to complete a full reappraisal, which would include full inspections of all developed properties. In contrast, an “update” would enable us to update value tables and complete a thorough field review, but without the need for interior inspections of all properties.

Only properties with recent renovations or new construction would receive the interior inspections during an update. This would mean a savings of between $25,000 to $30,000 over the cost of a full reappraisal. The full “Appraisal Update,” if approved, would specifically include: new cost tables; new land schedule; a complete sales analysis; updated condominium schedules; updated commercial appraisals; complete field review of all parcels and updates on properties with new construction or significant renovations.

The Town of Cavendish currently has funds in the amount of $46,826 in our Act 60/68 Reappraisal Fund. Budgeted for Fiscal Year 2011 is $5,500 for professional appraisal services which be put toward this expense and we anticipate an additional payment for the State of Vermont in March of approximately $11,000. This means that an appraisal update could be completed without the need for any special budgetary appropriation.

In Article 1, the Town of Cavendish is now asking its voters to consider approval of procuring professional appraisal services for an appraisal update as described and discussed above.