Town officials last week approved a $365,000 contract with a Fairfield-based company for the 2023 revaluation of all real properties in New Canaan.
The Board of Selectmen during a special meeting June 22 voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Municipal Valuation Services LLC.
Work for the reval will start in August, according to Assessor Sebastian Caldarella.
In capturing market trends, the town usually analyzes two years of sales, but this time round will analyze one year of sales, from Oct. 1, 2022 to Oct. 1, 2023, he said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
“So they’re going to start right away, in a sense,” Caldarella said.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted in favor of the contract.
The selectmen asked whether this year was a full revaluation (yes), what company did the last reval in New Canaan (same one), whether commercial properties will be part of it (yes), whether actual appraisals will be done (on a test basis to ensure the assessments are on track) and whether differences are expected this year in neighborhood designations (no).
With respect to the upcoming reval, referring specifically to the look-back restricted to October 2022 to 2023, Moynihan said, “So what happened this year or last year is irrelevant?
Caldarella said, “Correct.”
“So that is a going to be the gamble, in a sense,” he continued. “At least if the market does take a dive as bad as people are saying, as the interest rates are going up, but it’s still going to be based just on that year, [and] values as of October 1, 2023.”
I don’t understand why the contract with last year’s evaluator was renewed when no one that I talked to was satisfied with its reluctance to correct simple errors in the evaluator’s data.