As most of you know by now, Camden is in the process of updating the estimated values of the properties in town.  Most of you probably got a letter saying your property value had gone up. I got one, too, and as someone who plans to live here for a long time, this didn't feel like good news. I'm far more concerned with my tax bill than with how much I could sell my house for. 

Despite the fact that my house needs to be painted, my porch looks like a Goodwill drop off location, and crutches, walkers, and the occasional commode are known to be seen scattered in my front yard, property values on Mechanic Street are rising. According to the letter, our home is worth about 25 percent more than we paid for it in 2008 and about 18 percent more than the town had it assessed for last year. My first reaction was to wonder if this means a commensurate increase in my tax bill and thankfully, it does not. 

In Camden, property values have risen for almost everyone, but the budget is fixed. In June, we voted on the municipal and school budgets, and higher property values do not mean that we can go back and adjust the amount that citizens have agreed to allocate for schools, roads, police cars, and all the rest of it. What it means is that we are examining what portion each property owner should pay toward the budgets that have already been agreed on.  

For many of you, even though your home value has gone up, you will actually see a tax decrease. This is because while the mill rate has not been set, everything we’ve seen so far indicates that it will go down. Last year, the rate was $15.59 for every $1,000 of assessed value of your property. This means that a home assessed at $100,000 would have paid $1,559 in taxes. Since the overall value of homes in Camden has gone up by significantly more than the expenses that we have to pay as town, this will mean the tax rate can go down. 

The revaluation does not raise new revenue for the town. It only reallocates the portion that each property is responsible for. The Maine Constitution mandates that the town maintain a database of all the properties in town and the estimated fair market value of each of them. It also mandates that these estimates stay within a certain range. Our last revaluation was in 2004, and in many cases, very expensive properties have been undervalued, meaning that the town had them assessed for a much lower amount than they are selling for. If you buy a house for a million dollars in Camden, you should generally pay about four times as much in taxes as someone who bought a home for $250,000, but that wasn’t always happening. We were drifting farther and farther toward unacceptable discrepancies between fair market value and assessed value. 

Similar to the way a real estate agent would compare your property to other properties before listing it and setting a price, the assessing company that works for the town uses a formula that takes into account square footage, the neighborhood you live in, lot size, and the prices that similar homes have sold for. It is not a perfect system and may not take into account certain things that are either not visible or not known. 

If you got a letter saying that your home value has gone up and it doesn’t seem right to you, then don’t hesitate to follow the instructions on the letter you got. You can write an email explaining all the reasons why you think your home has been overvalued, or you can schedule a hearing time to sit down with the company that did the work. They will tell you how they arrived at the number and you can share what they may have missed. Perhaps your home is uninsulated, doesn’t have a working heating system, or the support beams in your basement are rotted and moldy. 

Lastly, for some, a much higher property value will mean an increase in taxes. For some of us, the fact is that we may have actually been getting a deal while some others have been paying more than their fair share. However, I know that for some people, especially those who have lived here a long time and are on a fixed income, any increase in taxes will come as a hardship. The town does have some funds available for low income, long time residents who need help paying their taxes.

The hearing process moves quickly and will be concluded by the first week in August. I would urge everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with the appraisers if you feel there has been an error. You are encouraged to bring photographs and any supporting documentation. For general questions about the process, you can also call the town Assessing Department. For a list of all home values before and after the revaluation, you can visit the revaluation page on the town website.

Alison McKellar is a Camden Select Board member.