Assessor outlines 2025 statistical revaluation, estimates $246 million city value increase with $28 million from new construction

City Assessor Phil Drew briefed the Finance Committee on the 2025 statistical revaluation and the larger full revaluation planned for 2026, describing how the changes might affect property owners ahead of the next tax-year calculations.

Drew said the assessor's office bases values on recent real-estate sales and that the statistical revaluation planned for April 1, 2025, adjusts assessed values using market trends without inspecting every property. A full revaluation scheduled for 2026 will include on-site inspections, Drew said, and KRT Appraisal is performing those inspections.

Drew reported several headline figures from the revaluation memo: a county median home-price increase of roughly 9.62% from 2023 to 2024; an overall city value increase of about $246,000,000, of which $28,000,000 is attributable to new construction. He said the city uses a multi-step adjustment process: property-type adjustments followed by neighborhood-level land and building adjustments, with an overall target ratio range near 91% to 92% of market value to stay in compliance with state requirements.

Neighborhood-level adjustments vary. Drew cited examples: Bangor Gardens was assigned a roughly 3% neighborhood adjustment; other neighborhoods (named in the memo as Yale, Juniper, Howard and Dartmouth) had neighborhood adjustments around 11% and combined property-type and neighborhood changes that reached roughly 13%. Drew said some neighborhoods saw much larger earlier changes in prior cycles (one neighborhood rose about 40% in a prior year). He said he moderated some increases this year so that the largest single-year change is capped near 22% in the study.

Drew emphasized that a higher assessed value for an individual property does not automatically mean a higher tax bill; the mill rate adjusts based on total value and the budgets set by the city, county and school systems. He said the city cannot estimate the FY26 mill rate yet because budget figures remain undetermined.

Drew outlined taxpayer options: informal review by the assessor's office and a formal appeal process if owners disagree with their assessments. He also described tax-exemption programs (homestead, veteran, disability/blind exemptions) that can reduce taxable values for eligible owners.

Drew said KRT had completed data collection on a portion of properties and that owners who had not engaged with data collectors would receive letters offering interior inspections at scheduled times. He noted that, in his preliminary dataset, about 39% of properties had provided interior information and 61% had not.

Committee members asked clarifying technical questions about how land and building adjustments are applied and about inspection frequency; Drew said statutes require periodic revaluations and inspections, but implementation depends on staffing and budget. He closed by saying final numbers from KRT would be available around March 1, after which the assessor's office will provide updated counts and public-facing maps.