Property Valuation office: equalized values climbed, statewide CLA near 72%; 152 reappraisal orders planned

Jill Ramit, director of Property Valuation and Review in the Vermont Department of Taxes, told the Ways & Means committee that the office’s annual equalization study shows continued double‑digit growth in statewide equalized education property values and a marked decline in the statewide common level of appraisal (CLA).

“The statewide CLA ... is at about 72.36%,” Ramit said, and she told members the office is planning to send about 152 reappraisal orders based on high coefficients of dispersion (COD) in some towns.

The report, Ramit said, found the statewide equalized education property value rose roughly 14.1% while listed grand‑list values increased about 7.8% for the same period. Ramit described the department’s work as “a huge amount of work that is done by a very small number of people,” noting the office oversees equalization, training for listers and assessors, current‑use enrollment and transfers, and municipal payments tied to the statewide education property tax system.

Why it matters: CLA and COD shape tax rates and whether towns must reappraise. The CLA is a measure of how local listed values compare with market sales; a CLA substantially below 100% indicates listed values are below fair market value. The COD measures within‑town equity: large CODs indicate similar properties are not being assessed consistently.

Jake Feldman, a PVR staff member who explained COD to the committee, said the statistic gauges equity within a municipality and can trigger a reappraisal order. “If you get that kind of variation, that’s really a problem,” Feldman said, adding that the commonly used threshold is 20% for COD and that values above that level suggest properties should be reexamined.

Ramit and staff described the implementation of Act 68 of 2023, which sets a six‑year reappraisal cycle and removed the prior CLA trigger for ordering town reappraisals while preserving the COD as a trigger. The shift to a six‑year cycle, Ramit said, aims to reduce the volatility of CLA and COD and to make appraisal scheduling more predictable for towns and appraisal firms.

Department officials told the committee that about 60 towns have not had a full reappraisal in 15 years or more and that smaller towns often struggle to find appraisal firms because of travel and the limited number of parcels. Ramit said the state helps with per‑parcel payments for reappraisal and maintenance, with the state and town each paying a share as established in statute, and that the department is working to publish town compliance status on its web page.

Current‑use program and land‑use change tax: The presentation covered the state’s current‑use program for agricultural and forest land, administration of contingent liens, and the land‑use change tax owed when enrolled land is developed or removed. Ramit said current‑use activity in the past year included roughly 1,800 transaction notices but only about 277 net new enrollments; most activity is transfers of enrolled parcels. Forest parcels generally require a forest‑management plan reviewed by the Agency of Natural Resources’ Forests, Parks and Recreation division.

On the land‑use change tax, Ramit described the statutory 10% penalty on fair‑market value for withdrawn or developed enrolled land, and noted the administrative challenges that follow: a town must value the withdrawn portion as a stand‑alone parcel, that valuation is used to calculate the tax, and the department returns up to $2,000 of the tax to the municipality with the remainder split between the education fund and the general fund. Ramit said the department has seen transactions delayed while values are established and called for discussions about how to make the penalty’s application more predictable and administrable.

Hold‑harmless payments and exemptions: Ramit told members the state pays an annual hold‑harmless payment to municipalities to compensate for revenue not collected from land enrolled in current use; the department reported that the hold‑harmless payment this year was about $20.5 million from the general fund. She also reported that statewide exemptions accounted for roughly 11,000 parcels with an exempted value near $11.1 billion.

Appeals, training and program supports: PVR oversees administrative appeals to its director and hearing officers, and Ramit said appeal volumes vary; some years the department reimburses towns that defend assessed values when appeals reduce education‑fund revenue. The office also runs trainings and certification programs for listers and assessors in partnership with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, the Vermont Listers and Assessors Association and the International Association of Assessing Officers.

What remains unresolved: The department is preparing lists of towns that will receive reappraisal orders and will publish compliance information online. Ramit also said the current‑use advisory board — which includes representatives from agriculture, forestry, and municipal officials — meets in February to set annual use values for enrolled land. She recommended further coordination with the Agency of Agriculture and Forests, Parks and Recreation on forestry‑category details.

The presentation prompted committee questions about classification consistency across towns, impacts of flooding and other climate effects on COD, how small sample sizes in rural towns affect the statistics, and administrative burdens induced by the 10% land‑use change tax.

Ramit closed by directing members to the supplemental data tables on PVR’s website and offering follow‑up on requests for town‑level longitudinal tables and maps of town appraisal age.