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Quest for Tax Abatements Continues in Casco

May 14, 2008 - CASCO -- John Carrigan hoped to spend his retirement at his home on Sebago Lake in Casco, but with skyrocketing property taxes he is worried he might have to sell.

Carrigan and his wife Beverly live on a fixed income. When their property tax bill rose from more than $2,800 to more than $5,000, Carrigan had to withdraw money from his individual retirement account to cover the expense.

He is one of around 250 Casco residents who have filed for tax abatements as a result of the property revaluation implemented in 2007.

Casco hasn't gone through a revaluation since 1990. The longer towns wait, the bigger the shift is and the more painful it becomes for residents, said John O'Donnell, the town's assessor and owner of John E. O'Donnell & Associates Inc., the company hired to submit the revaluation. Casco's delay was partly due to the death of the previous assessor, Kenneth Allen in 2005.

Carrigan worked for H.P. Hood in Portland for 42 years. As an avid fisherman, he always thought about retiring to Sebago Lake. In 1976 he bought a cottage on 60 feet of waterfront. Carrigan believes that the town made a mistake when assessing his property value.

In his abatement request, he is asking that the value drop more than $184,000 from the new assessed value of more than $539,000. "There is not one soul who is happy," Carrigan said of his neighbors on Sebago Lake, who make up the Lakewood Association.

The idea of a property revaluation is to redistribute the tax burden. The state law says that taxes must be assessed equitably and in accordance to just value. When town property taxassessments drop below 70 percent of the market value, a town must revalue all properties.

Bob Levesque, who founded the Casco Tax Fairness Association, argued that waterfront property values rose disproportionately in relation to other categories. "The core problem is that the properties have not been properly valued," Levesque said, who claimed discrimination against waterfront property owners.

Acting for other property owners, Levesque filed 233 abatement applications, each claiming discrimination because non-waterfront property values have not increased.

O'Donnell explained that he used sales of properties in Casco as a model to build guidelines to assess the 3,200 properties in town. Typically one-third of property owners see a rise in their value, one-third stay the same, and one-third see a decrease.

"In many cases, they were underassessed for years and years and years," O'Donnell said of waterfront property owners. That means that other property owners "were paying more than their fair share."

In a typical year, 10 to 20 property owners file for abatements. O'Donnell said that he will go through the applications one by one, but that he does not foresee finishing them before the 60-day deadline in the end of June.

Applicants for abatements can then take their case to the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners to appeal decisions by O'Donnell.

"I think the revaluation was long overdue," said Nelson Cole of Casco, adding that property values became skewed over the years. His property value remained the same through the process. The assessor is obligated to assess values at their market value, Cole said. Unfortunately for waterfront property owners, their market value has increased.

Casco resident Donnamarie Inman said, "It just doesn't seem fair. It seems like the senior citizens are being pushed out."

Resident Bill Johnson agreed with Inman. "They should have gradually increased it," he said.

"It's not just Casco," said Jeff Kendall, a property appraiser for the Maine Revenue Service. "Whenever you reallocate values, you take a segment of the population paying less than their fair share of taxes, and people feel they are being picked on."

If groups intend to prove an assessor wrong, they've got to have good numbers, Kendall added. "When you're talking about a whole class of properties it's difficult because there needs to be a flaw in the methodology."

Some states cap values and taxes until properties change hands. Though that's not the case in Maine, there was an initiative in the early 1990s to defer tax payments. The Elderly Deferred Tax Program pays a portion or all of owners' property taxes until they sell the property, at which time owners repay the program.

"It's designed to keep people in their homes," Kendall said. The program stopped accepting applicants because of funding concerns, but Kendall said that there is talk in Augusta about reinstating the program.

The state also provides tax assistance through the Circuit Breaker tax and rent refund program, which provides refunds based on the proportion of taxes to income.

"The ball is in the town's court," Levesque said. "We're ready to take this as far as we can."

By Julia Davis
www.keepmecurrent.com, May 12, 2008.

Lakes: Coffee Pond, Crescent Lake, Parker Pond, Pleasant Lake, Sebago Lake
Regions: Sebago


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