Facing a state-imposed Sept. 30 deadline, Providence officials are busy hammering away at approximately 500 property revaluation cases appealed by angry property owners who saw their assessments spike dramatically in 2000.
The city’s tax assessment board is meeting twice a week to handle the caseload, hearing an average of 15 appellants per session.
“We’re fully committed to hearing all of the cases prior to the date,” said John Simmons, the city’s acting chief of administration.
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Textron is the largest company in Providence that is appealing its revaluation. According to the company’s spokeswoman Susan Bishop, the company is in the process of reaching a settlement with the city, but she declined to elaborate on the proceedings or the assessment.
Textron’s headquarters at 40 Westminster St. increased in value from a total of $26,579,500 in 1999 to $33,580,000 in tax year 2001, according to city records.
Another company appealing is Paolino Properties. President and owner Joseph Paolino Jr. said he’s waiting for a response from the city on his appeal. He said that his property’s value has “more than doubled.”
“They’re not being realistic with some of the values they’re placing on these properties,” Paolino said of the city’s tax assessor. “I think they’re way off base.”
According to the city, the average commercial property had a 24-percent increase in value. Prior to the appeals made by property owners to Cole Layer Trumble, the company that conducted the revaluation, that increase was 43 percent.
“The board of tax review began meeting in May, and it’s a new board, and the members went through extensive orientation,” said John Gelati, acting city tax assessor.
According to Gelati, there were 1,500 appeals to the 2000 revaluation, and there are currently 500 still pending. Out of those, he estimated that 65 percent of them are commercial properties.
“Our intent is to still go through all the appeals within a reasonably quick timeframe,” said Simmons. “The city wants to have a fair appraisal of these properties; we’re not just settling to get through them.”
Property owners who decided to appeal their revaluation had a Dec. 7, 2002 deadline for appealing. The city also had a number of deadlines to settle with the owners, but has had them extended to Sept. 30, Gelati said. But Paolino thinks the city is “dragging its feet.”
“You have to appeal it in a certain amount of time, and then if you can’t settle, you have to wait to go to court, and then (possibly) to Superior Court and that could take years, and in the meantime we lose,” he said. “I don’t think they (the city) understand it as much as they should.”
On the other hand, if the city takes the appeals to court and loses, it pays the property owners 12 percent interest on the amount that each one was overcharged for their property. But until that time, the businesses are still paying taxes on the increased assessment, he said.
The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce is also appealing its property assessment. The Chamber purchased the building at 30 Exchange Terrace for $2.8 million, according to Jim Hagan, the Chamber’s president. The Chamber had it appraised several times by independent firms, which assessed the building’s value at $2.5 to $2.8 million. Three months after having the Chamber’s building appraised, the city assessed its value at $5.1 million, Hagan said.
Since the appraisal was sent to the Chamber a year ago, Hagan said he has met with the city and chiseled away that assessment to $3.5 million, “but it’s still grossly high,” Hagan said. “We’re not looking for a deal or anything; we just want it appraised at its real value.”
So far, neither the Chamber nor Paolino Properties has settled its dispute with the city, but Paolino has said he is planning to take the matter to court if necessary.
Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline has also begun another revaluation that would affect the tax bills in 2004 and has rehired Cole Layer Trumble, who did the previous revaluation.
Under state law, all communities must conduct a revaluation every three years. Simmons and Gelati said they plan to have settled all of the appeals before the conclusion of the next revaluation. So far, they said, none of the current 1,500 appeals have gone to court. There was one company that went to court over an assessment, and the city was ordered to pay back the difference, but the case was one from a previous revaluation in the 1990s, Gelati said.
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