The Pittsfield, Massachusetts city council approved a tax cut proposed by the mayor Tuesday night.
After last week’s press conference heralding first-term Mayor Linda Tyer’s proposal as “historic,” city officials had a chance to weigh in at the council meeting.
“There’s lots of good news that we’re reporting here this evening. For the first time, the average single family tax bill will see a reduction. This is the first time since 1993," siad Pittsfield City Assessor Paula King. “This is the first time that the residential and commercial tax rate will see a reduction since 2007.”
Her office is mandated by state law to assess the city’s property values on a yearly basis.
“For fiscal year 2019, the assessment date is January 1st of 2018," explained King. "The assessments are reflective of calendar year 2017 sales of property and also the income and expense performance of the commercial and industrial properties.”
The biggest gains in property values were residential.
“The total assessed for the single-family properties has increased by $53,622,900," said the assessor. "This is attributed mostly due to the robust market that we currently are seeing, and that’s about a 3 percent increase in the value of single family homes.”
Condos increased in value by around 3 percent as well, as did two- and three-family homes. Four and up-family homes comparatively lagged with an increase of 1.2 percent. Councilor John Krol questioned King about this, and she attributed the contrast to slower sales and poorer conditions.
“So, I mean, I think that’s something the city needs to recognize as far as code enforcement," said Krol. "I think we’ve fallen behind a little bit on that and I think we need to pick up our game on that.”
The biggest dip in the city’s assessment came in commercial properties, to the tune of almost $8 million.
“With regards to the commercial property," said King, "we use a median price, and the median price for the commercial properties has gone down 4.55 percent to $189,000.”
She attributed some of the drop to changing Department of Revenue land use definitions.
“There are a couple of golf courses and the Camp Winadu that had some chapter land associated with them," said King, "so it is – part of that is just a shift from the class code in the 300 series to the mixed use series as well.”
King’s presentation highlighted new taxable growth in the city, from the development of the former ITAM Lodge into the Proprietor’s Lodge to SABIC investing another $9 million into its facilities on the former campus of General Electric. Residential growth yielded over $100,000, and commercial just over $160,000. The largest gain was from new personal property tax revenue, pegged at just over $1.6 million.
“This is very significant," she told the council. "It’s the first time that we’ve had this large of a new growth in over a decade. I’ve been reporting new growth here since 2010 and we haven’t seen numbers like this before.”
King said after tallying the levy ceiling for the coming year, the city has to raise just over $168 million for its operating budget. She said around $82 million would come from receipts and other revenue sources, like state aid. The remaining balance, around $86 million, would come from taxpayers. Around 62 percent of that would come from residents in the proposed balance, and the remainder from commercial entities. All of this was to say that tax rates would drop for both entities for most taxpayers in Pittsfield.
“Yes, we are going down, but in reality, it’s almost a wash. A few dollars difference," said Councilor Christopher Connell. “Our assessed values go up, tax rate goes down. We save – I think it’s 18 cents a week on the average price of a residential house valued at $186,000.”
He bemoaned the lack of cost-saving measures the city has pursued, and said that the cost of living in Pittsfield has driven older, poorer residents out of the city.
“I think we need to consider – look at your mother or your grandmother, if they were still alive and if they were trying to live by themselves on a fixed income and they’re faced with not only tax rates where they’re going to be saving possible 18 cents a day but it’s certainly going to be overshadowed by the sewer rates in the next three years that are going to go up dramatically,” he told the council.
The council ultimately voted unanimously to accept the tax break.
