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Leominster assessor outlines valuations and recommends retaining single tax rate
Summary
The assessor's office presented a 10-year valuation history and scenarios for shifting the tax rate; the finance committee recommended and the full council voted to maintain the factor of 1 (single tax rate).
Leominster — At its Nov. 24 meeting the Leominster City Council heard the annual tax-classification presentation from the assessor's office, which reviewed a decade of valuation changes and explained the effect of altering the tax-classification factor.
Rena Gagne, chief assessor, led the presentation and pointed to valuation spikes that followed COVID-era sales and to parcel-count changes over the last two years. "If you look at page 18," she told councilors, "you can see the difference and where the burden is," noting that shifting the factor would have limited residential relief unless the commercial/industrial share paid substantially more.
Council discussion focused on the trade-offs of maintaining a factor of 1 versus splitting the rate. Finance committee members recommended keeping a factor of 1; the council approved that recommendation by roll call (unanimous recorded yays), maintaining the single tax rate for the coming year.
The presentation booklet included sample calculations showing the limited residential savings that would result from a commonly-discussed split and emphasized the assessor's review and DSL approval of valuations.
