Amherst, N.Y. (WBEN) - Amherst Town Assessor Emily Murphy was on WBEN Friday, attempting to explain the tax reassessment process which is underway in the town.
Property owners in Amherst have received notices that property values have changed. Assessments are going from 62% to 100%.
"The biggest misconception about this process," Murphy said, "is that it's being done to raise taxes and generate revenue for the town. Our job is to simply come in and divide the tax levy fairly among the taxpayers based on the value of their property."
The notices contain the new assessed value of the property as well as a hypothetical estimate of taxes.
Part of the confusion for homeowners is that the town board recently raised property taxes 11.4%.
"Two separate things," Murphy explained. "The 11.4% hike is included in the assessment disclosure notice. And we are giving a hypothetical estimate of taxes because a lot of people's assessments are going up quite a bit. Without including that hypothetical estimate of taxes, people are going to think that if their assessment is doubling, then their taxes are doubling. That's not the case," she added.
Murphy said it was important to include that hypothetical estimate to give property owners an idea of the direction their taxes are going. She said it is not an exact number because they don't have budgets yet for the next year.
"Pretty much everybody saw an increase in their assessment because we were at such a low equalization rate. If your assessment went up 70%, that's our break even number. So anything above that will probably result in an increase in taxes. Anything below that will mean a decrease."
Murphy noted that when you do a reassessment, you're going to see a third increase, a third stay the same and a third decrease.
March 31 is the deadline for challenges. A decision on an informal review is likely in early May. Grievances will be heard beginning May 28.