While the state recommendation is for towns to do a revaluation every four to six years, Potsdam hasn’t had a town-wide reassessment of taxable properties since 2013.

To that end, the town board voted at its Feb. 6 meeting to authorize Town Supervisor Marty Miller to sign a contract with GAR Associates LLC of Williamsville to conduct the revaluation.

“That’s the fairest way, so everybody will be paying their fair share,” Miller said in a separate conversation later with North Country This Week.

“It hasn’t been done since 2013 and it’s, unfortunately, a necessary evil,” the supervisor said. The supervisor said that for the record he was pretty upset that a town-wide revaluation of Potsdam’s 5,625 taxable parcels hasn’t been done regularly for some time.

However, the town board has been planning to hire an outside firm to come in and get them up to speed, and budgeted $200,000 last year to help pay for the service.

Total cost of the service provided by GAR could be around $380,000 when all is said and done. Miller said the remaining cost would be budgeted in 2025.

“The whole land table will be changed. It gives me a clean slate and that’s what I’m wanting,” said acting Town Assessor Danielle Mitchell. Mitchell, who is relatively new to the position, is expected to soon be certified as the full time assessor for the town.

“This is the way it is. We inherited the issue and we are moving forward with it,” Miller said. “We hired a good firm.”

Mitchell agreed and said that GAR, a real estate appraisal and analysis firm, has about 60 years experience conducting town-wide revaluations.

The firm was recently hired by the city of Ogdensburg in 2023 to conduct a citywide reassessment of properties. The city’s revaluation caused something of an uproar at first with a few residents voicing complaints of tripled assessments and increases of more than $100,000 in assessed values of their properties. The controversy ultimately led to the city assessor resigning amongst the kerfuffle.

“Unfortunately, all you ever hear about is the negative,” Miller said. “The firm ultimately made themselves available for residents to contest their new letters of assessment, and then city residents still have the regular grievance process with the city assessor's office, Miller said. 

The revaluation in Ogdensburg initially increased the city’s total overall assessed value by more than $80 million, although that presumably has been reduced somewhat by approved grievances following the revaluation. The town of Potsdam, which is a larger community, could see a jump as well from its current total assessed value of $1,096,295,165, even with the $479,870,500 in totally tax exempt properties that exist in the town.

The process

In Potsdam, GAR will be offering information meetings, as well as podcasts explaining the revaluation process to local residents, Miller and Mitchell said. Property owners will be kept in the loop during the revaluation process and updated on the progress of the project. GAR will also maintain phone lines to provide information and support. In addition, GAR and the town will have information on their websites, including instructional videos regarding the process.

“We demand transparency on this,” said the supervisor. “We want people to be educated on this.”

The firm will be on hand with a team of assessment experts for several months during the revaluation. Local law enforcement will be notified ahead of time of who the GAR assessors are and what they will be doing.

The town assessor’s office will be working closely with the firm during the revaluation.

A large portion of the work will be done this coming summer, according to the project calendar. Property owners will be notified of the new assessments in March 2025.

“And they (GAR) will build my database,” Mitchell said.

EQ rate

Another goal with the revaluation is to bring the Town of Potsdam from 74 percent tax equalization to 100 percent, said Mitchell.

An equalization rate is the state’s measure of a municipality’s level of assessment, and is a ratio of total assessed value to total market value, with the municipality determining assessed value and the state determining market value.

A 100 percent EQ rate means the town's assessed value matches its market value. Potsdam’s current 74 percent EQ rate means that a house assessed at $100,000 is estimated to be $135,135 on the market.

The state uses EQ rates to fairly portion taxes among various jurisdictions like town, village, county and school and to fairly distribute state school aid, among other things. Up-to-date, town-wide assessments like the one planned in Potsdam allow the municipality to regularly adjust assessed values more closely in line with market values and keeps the state-level tax and aid allocations at a more consistent and fair level. With the current assessment levels still set at the out-of-date 2013 and the EQ rate at 74 percent, the town and school district presumably are not getting up-to-date state tax allocations or school aid.   

Property owner concerns

The town is already fielding some concerns from property owners regarding the revaluation.

Town Assessor Clerk Tina Miller described one 35-minute call with a property owner who was worried about the reassessment.

“I explained the process, and pointed out that even if the assessment goes up, it doesn’t necessarily mean your taxes go up,” she said.

Miller said that the firm would be looking at a variety of things to determine each reassessment, including overall neighborhood levels, property types, market sale and other qualities.

“They’re experts,” she said.

“Not everyone is going to be happy unfortunately, but it's a necessary evil,” Marty Miller, the town supervisor said. “And unfortunately it's been put on us.”

Marty Miller pointed out that the town is still obligated to follow the 2 percent state tax limit, and even if the overall town-wide valuation increases, the town itself would not be profiting from the increase. Miller also pointed out that at the end of the day, the assessor’s office doesn’t raise taxes. The town board ultimately has that decision.

“And, it’s not like we are going to be raking in all this cash,” he said.

The supervisor said that in addition to following the two percent tax cap, he also plans to reduce the town budget down over the next few years during his term.

“I want people to be aware of the transparency of the process,” Marty Miller said. “This is only going to help us once this (EQ) rate gets at 100 percent.”