Switching to sole assessor is subject of hearing

RHINEBECK, N.Y. » The Town Board has scheduled a public hearing for Nov. 2 on a proposal to dissolve the town’s three-member elected Board of Assessment Review in favor a single appointed assessor.

The hearing will be at 5:30 p.m. at the Town Hall, 80 East Market St.

Town Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia said the town is facing its second townwide revaluation. The town’s previous assessment update, comprising 3,800 properties, was completed 11 years ago at a cost of about $300,000.

“We’re anticipating it will be another $350,000 to $400,000, and what we want, at the advice of our elected assessors ... is to hire a full-time assessor with benefits who’s going to work with the department to keep our valuations and our tax rolls current every year, so we won’t have to go through another townwide revaluation,” Spinzia said.

Assessor Jennifer Mund, who is also a full-time appointed assessor for the town of Lloyd, supports the change.

“I just find that the sole appointed assessor is the best way to move forward for the town,” she said. “You have consistency. You have less people making subjective opinions about things and you have somebody who’s here to actually provide customer service.”

Mund said requests for proposals will be reviewed next month.

“We’re planning to data collect through the summer and fall of 2018,” she said. “Then we’ll do an evaluation and field review of the new values ... into 2019, to be enacted for the 2020 tax roll.”

Officials said the town has maintain a 100 percent equalization rate, which is used by school districts to equalize tax rates over more than one municipality, because figures were updated the first six years after the last revaluation.