NASHUA. NH – On Saturday, Sept. 21, many Nashua residents were surprised to receive new property value notifications of the “New 2024 Preliminary Assessment” in the mail. The notifications were missing some required information.
The letters came as a surprise even to some aldermen, like Ward 1 Alderman Tyler Gouveia who described the news of property revaluations as “blindsiding,” at a Board of Aldermen meeting on Sept. 24.
Alderman Patricia Klee and Alderman Derek Thibeault also said they were unaware of the notices going out.
“We never had an official communication to the board that this was going on,” Gouveia said. “I feel we could have just done better educating the public and we could have done better easing everybody on what the long-term plan was here.I just feel there was a big lack of communication and that hurt for a lot of people.”
Mayor Jim Donchess agreed that communication was lacking.
“This had been discussed at the Board a few times. I think people just assume that you understood that this would be coming out around now. But obviously if that was the assumption, it wasn’t accurate,” he added.
According to Ward 9 Alderman John Sullivan, the contract between Vision Government Solutions – the entity contracted to carry out the revaluations – and the City of Nashua was brought up to the Board of Aldermen during budget season, which he says was around May or June. At this point they were told a statistical evaluation would come out sometime in 2024.
“There was nothing on the city website under the assessing page that announced that there is a statistical revaluation currently going on. I even checked the day I got it in the mail. I went on the website and there was no mention of a statistical revaluation in 2024,” he said on October 10. “It’s up there now, but that weekend that I got my letter, when everyone else got their letter, the only evaluation mentioned was 2022, which was two years ago.”
Last year, The Board of Aldermen voted for revaluations to be done every two years to prevent assessments from going up at an even greater percentage, as was in the case in 2022, with an approximate increase of 40 percent from 2018. Aldermen were told that the 2024 assessments would be completed in the fall, but no specific date was given.
In the 2023 contract, there is a schedule for when each of the tasks related to the revaluations were to happen. According to this schedule, informal hearings were to be held from Aug. 25 to Sept. 21 and notices about these hearings were to be mailed on Aug. 21.
The schedule was delayed. Mike Tarello of Vision Government Solutions said that the informal hearings started on Sept. 24 and are going until Oct. 18.
According to the Mayor’s Office, the value notifications also served as hearing notices. Tarello said that the residential notices were sent out on Aug. 13, and commercial notices were sent out on Aug. 23.
As required by contract (section 3.6.3), the value notifications did include information about the informal review process and how to schedule an informal review and the time in which to schedule them.
(The notifications said the deadline to schedule an appointment was Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2024. That Wednesday was actually Oct. 2. At a Board of Assessors meeting on Oct. 3, Tarello said that the deadline was Oct. 2, but that they will still take calls.)
However, the notifications did not include other required, and legally required information, in accordance with sections 3.6.2 and 3.6.4 of the contract.
Section 3.6.2 says, “Contractor shall mail, first class, to all property owners, the notification of the newly established value of their property by sending to the property owner either of the following:
- A list of all property owners containing the newly established valuations of all properties within Municipality; or
- A letter to the owner stating the newly established value of their property and whether Contractor has either:
- Published a list of property owners containing the newly established valuations for all properties within Municipality in an identified newspaper of general circulation for the entire Municipality; or
- Posted in two (2) identified public places within Municipality a list of all property owners and the newly established values of the entire municipality.”
Section 3.6.4 says, “The notification of newly established values shall contain instructions in regard to the appeal process for abatements pursuant to RSA 76:16, RSA 76:16-a and RSA 76:17.”
Part 2.5.1 says “Contractor and municipal assessing officials, during the progress of work, shall each use their best efforts to promote full cooperation and amiable relations with taxpayers. All publicity and news releases shall be approved by the municipal assessing officials before being released to the news media. Contractor, upon request of the municipal assessing officials, shall provide assistance in conjunction with the municipal assessing officials to acquaint the public with the mechanisms and purpose of the revaluation.”
“The schedule and the contract, obviously we were made aware of it, but at the same time, I mean, how many contracts and items go through the finance committee?” Gouveia said on Oct. 10 “It’s not uncommon that we would get another reminder or we’d hear about it happening from either city staff or the mayor during his comments. So it just kind of took us by surprise because something of that magnitude usually doesn’t just get approved once and we never hear about it until it’s done.”
“During the assessing process I don’t recall an update,” he added.
City Administrative Services Director Tim Cummings, when asked, said that there was communication to the aldermen about the revaluations.
“I am not sure why some members of the Board of Aldermen would make such statements. In fact, I had a couple of Aldermen directly tell me they do recall and were aware,” he said.
He further said that at a Budget Review Committee meeting on May 30, he said, “And as a reminder, we are in the reval right now and we expect to conclude that revaluation again this fall and so we will continue to maintain that contracted relationship with Vision.”
Cummings said he was not sure why the information required in sections 3.6.2 and 3.6.4 were not on the notifications, and that he would need to ask Vision about why it wasn’t included.
Abatement instructions and an abatement form can be found here.
While it remains unclear as to what extent the aldermen were kept in the loop on and during the revaluations, the mayor’s statement during the Sept. 24 aldermanic meeting may sum it up most succinctly: “The communication should have been better,” Donchess said.
