Assessor explains 100% annual reassessments and warns five‑year freeze would shift costs

Town Assessor Edie McCarthy told the Greenberg Town Board on July 7 that the town’s current practice of valuing properties at 100% of market value and updating assessments annually lets the assessor ‘‘track right along with the market every year.’’ She said that approach is more transparent than a 70%‑of‑value model used elsewhere and gave a simple example: "If your house is worth $1,000,000, your assessment will be $1,000,000."

McCarthy reviewed the townwide reassessment adopted about 10 years ago and said the earlier system — where a $1,000,000 market value might be carried as a much lower assessed value — was confusing to taxpayers. She described how the town’s interim annual trend analysis adjusts assessments to reflect building permits and market movement, rather than leaving values frozen for multiple years.

Board members raised comparisons with Connecticut, where McCarthy said law requires a full reassessment every five years and that some municipalities set assessed value to 70% of market and freeze that figure for interim years. McCarthy warned that freeze policies can produce very large increases when the freeze ends: "When the market starts going down, values are dropping but that freeze is still in effect... in the 6th year they're getting a huge, huge increase in their assessments and in their taxes as well."

Members pushed on tradeoffs and local effects. One board member asked whether building permits would still trigger assessment changes under a freeze; McCarthy said permits, court orders and exemption cancellations remain lawful causes to change assessments and stressed that freezing assessments still allows taxes to change because tax rates are set by the various taxing jurisdictions. As she put it: "Freezing the assessments... doesn't mean your taxes are gonna be stable. It means their assessments are stable."

Several members and staff discussed possible compromise ideas, including a short trial freeze or targeted relief for seniors and residents on fixed incomes. McCarthy said a statutory freeze like Connecticut’s would require state legislation and that the town lacks authority to implement a full freeze locally: "We can't freeze it. We would need state legislation to freeze the assessments," she said.

The board did not take a vote on a freeze. McCarthy offered to do additional research on how other jurisdictions manage cyclical reassessments and suggested returning with more detailed comparisons and options.