CITY OF LOCKPORT: Council orders a bid proposal for citywide reassessment

Local News

September 2, 2009

Staff Reports The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Wed Sep 02, 2009, 11:51 PM EDT

The city will shop around for property assessment service, the Common Council decided Wednesday.

Aldermen voted to direct Acting City Assessor Joe Macaluso to write a bid package for a citywide revaluation project. Companies interested in the job will return the call and, in the process, give the Council an idea how much revaluation will cost over the next year or two.

“It’s not going to be cheap, but we can’t put it off any more,” Mayor Michael Tucker said.

Macaluso, who works for the city on a contractual basis, has already told Tucker that revaluation services by a private appraising firm could cost $200,000 to $250,000. Updating the city’s property inventory, which is known to be rife with inaccuracies, and checking/adjusting the assessed value of every parcel is expected to take about 18 months.

Bid proposals probably won’t be returned before the Council has to approve the 2010 budget. Currently, the draft budget shows a line item of $200,000 for contractual services including revaluation.

That number represents almost all new spending and, thus, upward pressure on the 2010 tax rate. It’s an unhappy prospect, Tucker said, but so is the thought of continuing to ignore obvious over- and underassessment around the city.

Citywide property revaluation was last done in 2001. Adjustments have been made sporadically, in select neighborhoods or, theoretically, “thirds” of the city since then.

Adjustments have been nominal since mid-2006, when then-Assessor Vince Smith quit the post in light of widespread public outrage over his proposed value hikes. His successor, Peter Galarneau, quit earlier this year, after informing Tucker he could not manage revaluation without some outside help.

There is no search under way to replace Galarneau. Macaluso, as “acting” part-time assessor, signed the 2009 roll and is staffing the assessor’s office two days per week.

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