LOCKPORT
Revaluation looks unlikely before 2011
LOCKPORT — The city’s long-postponed property reassessment probably won’t happen until 2011, Mayor Michael W. Tucker and acting Assessor Joseph Macaluso agreed last week.
Before it happens, the city needs to hire a private company to carry out field work on every property, Macaluso said.
He said he has quotes from two companies, which he wouldn’t identify, which placed the cost in the range of $200,000 to $250,000.
He has been working two days a week since April, and his primary role has been to check out parcels which have received building permits for improvements and revise their assessments.
But as far as a general revaluation, Macaluso doesn’t have the time.
“The assessments are out of line. They haven’t changed since 2005, and some since the early 2000s,” he said.
Tucker said he agrees that outside help is needed, but he isn’t sure whether the city should hire a firm this year or wait until 2010.
“When we do [the revaluation], it’s got to be accurate. We want it fair to all the taxpayers,” the mayor said.
Macaluso, the retired Genesee County director of real property services, was hired in April on a six-month agreement after Assessor Peter J. Galarneau resigned to take the real property services job in Otsego County.
He said he’s willing to keep working two days a week — his current deal runs out Oct. 28 — but he can’t take the full-time assessor role because the salary would exceed the earnings limit he must comply with to keep his state pension coming.
There have been occasional mentions in the past of sharing assessment services with the Town of Lockport, but nothing serious has happened.
Macaluso said he’d like to go beyond that, consolidating the city and town into a single assessment district. But at the moment, it would be illegal.
That’s because while the town is at full value, the outdated assessments in the city have caused its equalization rate to fall to 90 percent.
“First of all, we’d have to get on the same level [to consolidate],” Macaluso said.
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