House Ways & Means hears mixed testimony on statewide property assessment overhaul

The House Ways & Means Committee took testimony Feb. 27 on a draft bill to create a statewide property-assessment system that would standardize reappraisals, expand district advisers and centralize some appeals and data functions.

Supporters and municipal officials told the committee the state needs more consistent valuation practices and stronger technical systems, but many witnesses warned the proposal as written could shift costs and legal burdens to towns and increase appeals in the near term.

The draft would create regional assessment districts, rely on Division of Property Valuation and Review (PVR) standards, expand district-advisor staffing and roll some data functions into a common system. Proponents said those changes would improve statistical validity and allow appraisal models to perform better with larger data sets. "The better the better your data is, the more you have, the better the model's gonna work," Burlington City Assessor Joe Turner said.

But multiple local officials urged caution on timing, funding and appeals. Eileen Tullock, an assessor in Brattleboro and chair of Putney's select board, described a recent townwide reappraisal that produced more than 100 grievances and about 23 appeals to the Board of Civil Authority (BCA). She told the committee she "support[s] wholeheartedly…