January 2012
Pursuant to Connecticut State Law, the Assessor must appraise every property within the town based on its fair market value as of the date of the last revaluation. Additionally, every municipality must complete a new town-wide revaluation every five (5) years. At least once every ten years, each town must “fully inspect” each property. Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 12-62 defines “fully inspect” as “viewing the inside of each property”.
The town of Colchester must complete a town-wide revaluation for the October 1, 2011 Grand List and must fully inspect every property. The inspection process, also known as “Data Collection” is one of the five major phases in a revaluation. The four others are: Market Analysis, Valuation, Field Review, and Informal Hearings.
The last time Colchester fully inspected every property was for 2001 Grand List and that town-wide revaluation cost $284,000. Colchester also completed a town-wide revaluation in 2006 that did not include inspecting every single parcel. That revaluation cost $153,000. Clearly, Data Collection with full inspections is the most costly part of the project.
In an effort to reduce those costs, the Colchester Assessor’s Office plans to complete some of the revaluation functions in-house rather than wait until 2011 and sub-contract out all of the services required. They believe that this change could save the town $100,000 or more.
In March 2010, Colchester employees began fully inspecting properties for 2011 revaluation purposes. Additionally, over the next 18 months, residents will be receiving data mailers asking them to review and compare the actual current data of their property versus the current town assessment records.
In addition to being a cost saving measure, Assessor John Chaponis believes inspections done by his office will be of a better quality than that of an outside firm that would send data collection employees to Colchester for six months and then move on to their next town.
“Town employees have a vested interest in Colchester and we will be here after the project is completed,” said John Chaponis, Town Assessor. “This method is the best way to keep costs down and ensure that quality is not compromised. It only makes sense that we would take more pride, due diligence and avoid shortcuts. Furthermore, when we sub-contract the data collection phase to an outside firm, I still must supervise that work and perform quality control checks and balances to ensure the end product meet our standards”. Chaponis said
“By accepting more duties and responsibilities ourselves, we hope to reduce our contracted 2011 revaluation services to less than $200,000 and still meet all of Connecticut’s mandated requirements,” added Gregg Schuster, First Selectman.
The Colchester Assessor’s Office along with the revaluation contractor, Vision Government Solutions, began the final review phase of the project January 2, 2012 and is currently in the process of making a final drive by inspection of every property in town to verify town data and final valuation. Assessor John Chaponis expects notice of assessment changes to be mailed out by early to mid February at which time property owners having questions regarding their new value can schedule appointments with Vision Government Solutions staff or the assessor. Anyone aggrieved by the assessment process has the right to file a written appeal with the Board of Assessment Appeals who meets in April. Those wishing to appeal must submit their application to the assessor’s office no later than March 20, 2012. They must be
received in the office by the March 20, 2012 deadline and postmarked by March 20, 2012 is NOT acceptable. Failure to file a fully completed written appeal by the March 20, 2012 deadline is considered a waiver of your right to appeal in that year.
As always, all town employees have town-issued photo identification and their names are listed on the town website as well as at the bottom of this update. All Vision Government Solutions employees also have photo ID and their names are listed below. Furthermore, their make, model and license plates are on file with the town assessor’s office and police department.
The Colchester employees that are currently working in the field are:
John Chaponis |
Assessor |
|
Tom Tanganelli |
Deputy Assessor |
|
Jay Gigliotti |
Data Collector |
|
Emma Sousa |
Data Collector |
|
The Vision Government Solutions employees that are currently working in the field are:
Jason Lawrence Project Supervisor & Commercial Appraiser Brandy Landrie Residential Appraiser
|
