Can you bring the Brattleboro Select Board meeting for Thursday, November 20th, 2025 to order?

This is a special meeting.

And John, was the meeting officially warned?

Yes, it was properly warned.

Great, thank you.

As for chair remarks, I I just have one thing to say.

That again, coming over here in the dark.

Um, I noticed many people walking their dogs that I could barely see.

Please, when you're out walking, bring a flashlight.

Um, and that's all.

John, do you have any comments?

Um I have just one tonight.

Uh the I just wanted to let everyone know that we've had some uh staffing constraints, and uh we are going to be closing the finance department from 12 to 1 during the day um for the foreseeable future so that people can get a break and have a lunch.

So great.

Yep.

Do either of you have comments?

Just to say that I think Jennifer, you brought and made the cookies.

Yes, right.

Is that for anyone?

Yeah, absolutely.

Please help us.

Well, on the table are cookies from Jennifer.

And little and oranges.

And apple cider.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess I'll just say welcome.

I'm glad to see everyone here that's here, and um thank you for the cookies.

Welcome.

All right.

Um, is there anyone who would like to discuss something that is not on tonight's agenda?

Yes, ma'am.

Could I see an agenda, please?

They're over there.

Can you have a question?

Um come to the microphone, please, and state your name and where you live.

Pardon me.

Sorry, I'm I'm Audrey Garfield.

I live in Brattleboro.

And I'm aware of the schedule of departments that we'll be presenting for the budget process.

And I apologize if this question's been asked already, and I'm not aware of it.

But I'm wondering if the finance committee still meets and when we'll be hearing from the finance committee regarding the budget.

Uh well, the finance committee is an RTM committee and a member is here, and perhaps he knows when your next meeting is.

David.

The finance committee is Finance Committee is a representative town meeting committee.

Okay.

They meet on their own, and they have been invited to come to speak to the select board, but uh that's been on again and off again, and maybe David or John know when that is.

Okay, you don't need to speak slowly.

I understand um the uh the finance committee meets regularly.

Maybe David, you want to give a schedule?

Yes, our next meeting, David Lubmark, District 9 Finance Committee.

Um the next meeting is on uh Monday at 6 p.m.

in the Hannah Causeman room right here.

That's December 1st.

November 24th.

November 24th.

Uh and if you go to uh the RTM committee's section of the town web page, you'll see our minutes and uh also uh on the Ms.

Stickler's distribution list, she announces when all committees are meeting.

Thank you.

Yes, um, so if anybody wants to be on the distribution list for when the finance committee meets, please let Jessica Stickler know in the town manager's office, and her email is J Stickler at Brattleboro.gov.

Thank you, John.

And has the meeting of the finance committee to the select board been scheduled?

No.

Okay.

Uh anyone else for public participation.

Great.

Well then um, if it's all right with you, I will just introduce Ryan and Jennifer.

Yes, please.

All right, we have Jennifer Burnell, our town assessor, and Ryan Silvestri to speak to us tonight.

Please begin.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody, for coming.

Um we are going to uh give you a little briefing on um the reappraisal and the process.

Um a little background.

In March of 23, the representative town meeting um voted to commission the town, a town wide reappraisal of all taxable property within the town to be completed in 2027.

To be completed in 2027.

The town was last reappraised in 2010.

A standard of industry of the industry is to reappraise every six years.

And that has now also become state requirement.

So this is the beginning for us to start that process.

And Ryan Sylvestri is here as co-owner of Nimek.

No.

NEMC.

I'm not supposed to say it that way.

Give you a little briefing and answer any questions that you may have.

Yeah, thank you for here.

Yep.

So my name's Ryan.

I'm co-owner of New England Municipal Consultants, and I'm going to be your project manager for the reappraisal for the 2027 grand list.

So I just want to thank you for this opportunity to meet with taxpayers at Brattleboro and definitely field questions, but just give you a kind of a quick overview as to the process and some of the kind of, you know, get rid of some of the rumor mill, you know, potentially things that are out there about reappraisal and effects that it has.

So it's been quite some time since your prior reappraisal.

We're going to be building an entirely new database from scratch.

So we're going to be updating their database into it's very for very formidable, very it has a lot of data points, so that we're able to create a lot more equity.

The more data we're able to create, the more equity we can create from building to building, parcel to parcel.

You know, when it you know, town wide reappraisal, you know.

Percent of change.

A lot of people, you know, are worried about percentage of change and say, well, if my assessment goes up X percent, my tax bill is gonna go up that same percent.

And that's not true.

The tax rate's gonna change as a result of the grand list changing.

So if the budget stays the same and the grand list doubles, the municipal tax rate would be cut in half.

So depending upon what your percent of change is for your parcel compared to the overall average for the whole town, is really the first indication, the best indicator to what effect your we will have to your tax bill.

Um the big variable in that that you know is hard to control is the education portion, obviously the tax bill and what that base education rate will be for that for 2027, and that's something that we can't we don't have tons of control over.

So there are a lot of variables that go into that final, you know, your final your new tax bill as a result of the reappraisal, but it's not a one-for-one, you know, whatever percentage my assessment increases, um, that's the percentage my tax bill is gonna increase.

We will be asking to do interior inspections as part of the reappraisal.

It's really important for us to that's again helps us build equity, being able to say what condition the interior is versus the exterior of a home because our task is uh per state statute 100% of fair market value.

So your assessment is to reflect 100% of fair market value as of April 1st, 2027, using the prior three years of sales in Brattleboro only.

So, and that is also statute.

So we'll use sales from April 1st of 2024 to April 1st of 2027, and to set all values throughout the whole town for residential and commercial properties.

Um for commercial properties, we've actually already had uh a good luncheon with some of the commercial owners.

We're gonna be setting up income and expense mailers, and we're gonna be valuing commercial property based on how they would be sold, and that's their ability to generate revenue to generate income.

So, depending on that query and what we get back, you know, what we can infer from sales that have occurred over the three years of commercial property.

Um, that's how we'll be setting commercial commercial values as a high more of a hybrid approach of sales and income and expense.

Residential properties have a basis and cost approach to value, but again, we're also gonna back those into sales, you know, over the three years of looking at comparable sales for property within the area.

Um, we have really good data collectors, we're very friendly.

We're willing to educate as best as we can.

Um we want everyone to be on the same page throughout this process.

We have no way we're gonna hide from anybody.

In fact, we're gonna probably be pretty obnoxious.

You know, flash of lights, yellow vests, you know, working in teams, you know, throughout the town.

We'll be working in teams of three to four people down, you know, down a street in cold calling.

We will send out impact letters to taxpayers ahead of areas of town that we're going to be working in.

So that every taxpayer will get a notice, they'll have an opportunity to call and set up an appointment so we don't just cold call the property.

And they also have the option at that point to say they don't wish us to come on the property at all, which is totally fine, but we're still tasked to update your assessment either way.

So we're going to make general assumptions from what we can see from the road from Google Earth, whatever other resources we can use.

Where through the company, we're going to offer informational hearings ahead of your formal grievance process.

So they'll now be four levels of appeal as opposed to three.

And at that informational stage, the company, we're still have control, we still have control of the values.

We can make value changes at that point, but we're also going to answer any questions you have about your new record card.

The record cards are going to look different from anything that you're you're used to seeing.

So be able to go over the data with you, go over the value, share, share some sales, uh field feedback from the taxpayer, you know, at that point.

If we didn't get inside, we might have just a verbal survey and say, hey, you know, we see the house was built in 1950.

Is that are the bathrooms original, the kitchen original, you know?

Or you know, try to try to decipher as best we can any of the issues that there may be in the data card.

Um, and then that's when we will turn over the our entire project to the town assessor in the listers, and they'll go through their formal grievance process with everybody in town.

So you get that kind of pre-grievance informational hearing where we really encourage folks to participate, um, even if you agree with your value and just have general questions, again, we really aim to get everybody on the same page, you know, with this process.

And in really, you know, we want to make everybody understand that reappraisal is a good thing, creating equity of a grand list is a good thing.

That's the only way that as a society we can say you're paying your fair share of taxes.

If assessments within a community are awry and not there's no equity, there's lack of consistency, there's a lot of um, you know, renovations or lack thereof that's not hasn't been captured.

Um, it's really difficult for your town to set a municipal tax rate because that grand list, that total grant list value is in question.

They don't really know how much the value of Brattleboro is today versus 17 years ago when it was last appraised.

So to correct the grand list to have accurate tax rates so that you can have you know intelligent budget commissions based on what your grand list is, since you can see the budget divided by the grand list is your tax rate.

So the big variable of that is the grand list, is which we aim to correct and correct equitably you know, parcel by parcel throughout town.

Um I do want to just kind of open the floor to the board.

Anyone here for any specific questions anyone may have for me at this time, if that's all right, or does anyone from the public have questions for Ryan at this time?

I I the board has some questions, please.

But if the public prefers to go first, that's fine too.

Okay, I have a number of questions.

Great.

Yeah, um, so when you say appraised compared to what?

So appraised compared to similar-sized towns in New England.

Appraised compared to that's what I'm kind of Yeah, sure.

So Brattleboro.

So every so every sale that we use to set market value will be from Brattleboro over that three-year period.

So we're not gonna be we're not gonna be taking sales from any adjoining communities at all.

It's all we're gonna have more than enough sales within Brattleboro to be able to set set fair assessments.

Okay.

Um where do farms fit in in the appraisal process?

Because they're not residential, they're are they considered commercial?

So they are they are residential, so highest the best use of a farm would be as a residential sale.

We with farm properties, farm-specific buildings, we build in a lot of functional obsolescence to them.

So you could have a 25,000 square foot dairy barn, and we're not gonna be valuing it at much at all, right?

It's not it's gonna be valued at maybe three dollars a square foot, right?

It's it's a sad reality in Vermont but we have to reflect that in the market as well.

We can't you know say because your building is 25,000 square feet it's worth a couple hundred thousand that's not how the market would react you know if you're purchasing that property that's not the weight of value you'd be placing on it.

How does the current use appraisal program factor into the appraisal?

So it does it actually does nothing to how we value property current use comes downstream or after the value.

So we value all land the same regardless of being enrolled in current use or not and then current use then sub will subsidize the enrolled land.

So we may have excess acreage valued at you know 25 to 30 you know 25 to 3500 per acre on a depreciated curve.

So that's how we bring in economies of scale so if you own a hundred acres not each each acre is not going to be valued at 3500.

The first 10 may be and then each acre after that will be worth less acre 11 would be worth 2940 acre 12 would be worth 2880 and so on and so forth until we get to like typically around like five four hundred dollars an acre but that's if you have hundreds of acres so the idea there is if you were to buy in bulk you pay less per unit what current use does is it takes your the total value of your enrolled land and it taxes it at a state set value.

So ag productive last year I think was about 400 and something dollars per acre taxable value whereas we may be valuing that land as assessment at an average of $1800 per acre so that's how current use that's where car use comes in so and it's it's real important actually the state's really been trying to audit that because what some towns have done is they'll backload your excess acreage so they'll say your excess 200 acres is worth a million bucks knowing that it's enrolled in current use and the value and the taxable value of that's going to be reduced greatly and that's that's not how that's not correct.

So we value all land the same current use comes afterwards.

Are there any stipulations for conserved land?

So excess acreage we don't value excess acreage as if it could be developed we value it for your use and enjoyment.

So if your use and enjoyment is inhibited by the characteristics of the land we're going to account for that so steep slopes wetlands easements right of ways elect electric easements whatever restrictions there may be so when it comes to like Vermont land trusts and you know conservation easements it's hard to quantify an exact dollar amount that that that really creates to the property because it would if we were valuing the property and say okay you have a hundred acres and we're making a gross assumption that you could put five building lots on that hundred acres now that conserved land now that I need to re obviously get rid of that value because there you can't legally do that but we're not valuing excess acreage as if it could be developed at all because rule number one in appraisal is is it legal and I'm not your ZA I'm not Act 250 I'm not a septic engineer you know we're not going to value excess acreage as if it's developable until those lines are put on the map and a subdivision's been filed.

One more question thank you what category do nonprofits go go into are they considered commercial or um you know in the town of Brattle you've probably gotten to know us already we have a lot of sure nonprofits that own quite a large amount of um property land and buildings.

Sure so we'll all be valued the same so if it's a commercial building it will be valued as any other commercial building would be if there's any tax stabilization or agreement for taxation that would be exercised by the town of Brattleboro any pilot programs you may have.

So but we still are going to value everything uniformly throughout the community so you only gave two categories residential and commercial but what is say a hospital for example hospital would be exempt but it is assessed regardless.

Assessed value is likely going to be a bit more.

But it's something where I'll use an example of a school.

So say uh the town has a school assessed at you know 45,000, and it should be a million.

Well, the insurance insurance companies they're gonna look at anything to be to try not to pay us.

So they're gonna say, okay, you know, you have a town has this assessed at such a low value.

Why?

You know, your claim your claim is for a million bucks, but your own town records say it's worth 45,000.

So it's still it's not taxed, but we still want to value it accurately so that it's viewed however it may be viewed by any outside source, it's viewed for what it is.

Let me just follow that.

So that's something that the owner should value that their property is properly assessed because there's a lot of other factors going into it other than the taxes.

This is all public information, so yeah, anyone can look at these values and look at this data and make inferences.

So we just want it to be as accurate as possible, and that's and that's the best that we can that's the best we can do.

Thank you.

Amanda, what was there more?

That's everything.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, thank you.

Not right now.

Okay.

Uh now, members of the public, do you have questions?

David The reason to David Ludmark District 9.

Thank you for the presentation.

Very clear.

Um, you talk about an information session prior to a grievance process.

Uh I'm not expecting this to be an issue.

But just out of curiosity, the grad list now is public, and so anyone can see all the values.

Before the information and the grievance, will the entire town's data be public?

Yes, thank you for that question.

It will be.

So we'll actually be publishing the whole database online.

So you'll be able to filter through even and say, uh, show me everything on every value on this street, show me every value of this building type, um, show me every value of this age, and be able to gauge your parity between current assessment to current assessment.

Um I will be honest.

So we we used to publish and mail out um a booklet, but those costs have become very very restrictive.

And we find that the online database we will have paper copies available in town hall for anybody that needs them, just Excel's printouts with that data.

But the online um database, we I get some pretty good analysis from that.

You know, I get some statisticians that really go at that, and they come in with really good, really good arguments and observations, and um we want to we we want to put that out there.

So you'll get a preliminary value notice that will show your old assessment, your new assessment.

That will it will also give you directions on how to view that online database and how to schedule an appointment with us.

Um and really, you know, there are three, there are three are this is more when you get to formal grievance, informational, ask us anything.

But when you and we'll coach you on how to grieve formally, there's really three arguments you want to make.

My current assessment does not equal fair market value based on these sales, these other comparable sales that I'd like to provide to you.

My current assessment isn't equitable when looking at other similar properties assessments throughout Brattleboro.

So here's another 1950s ranch valued at 280, and mine's the same thing, valued at 345.

Yeah, I gotta now I gotta reconcile that for me, you know.

Or there's mistakes.

There's just flat out data mistakes on my record card.

Um you have my house was built in 2004, where in fact it was built in 1960, and that back addition is only 2004, which would affect your depreciation.

What was the first of those three things?

My current assessment um does not equal fair market value based on these comparable sales or examples of of other uh of sale prices in the area.

Anyone else?

Yes, Aaron.

I'll get you in a second last question.

Aaron Smith, Brattleboro.

So I had a few questions.

Um what did you say the assessment schedule is now?

The schedule is gonna be done in every six years.

So the state, yeah, so every six years.

Okay.

Yep.

Um, next thing.

Uh building condition that plays into your assessment.

So if you're in a row of houses and you have the ISO.

That's going to affect the assessment.

Yeah, so we're going to depreciate your property more.

And if the land it sits on is in a flood zone, flood zone land is appraised at a different value.

It's good.

So we're going to set a neighborhood schedule throughout the whole town, and low-lying land that's in the floodplain is going to be a lower neighborhood designation.

And that likely would it's because it's hard to say being in the floodplain or flood way in exactly where you are within that is equal to X amount of dollars.

But what I can say is by looking at sales in these areas, these sales are depressed comparative to the next row, the next street up.

So your base land values will be lower.

Okay.

So there may there may not be on the card floodplain minus 5,000 or pick it pick a number, right?

Because but I can say through my analysis, everything in these areas is selling for less, therefore they're gonna have lower base base land values.

Yeah, I'm in a kind of a unique situation because my all my neighbors are out of the flood zone, and I happen to be in it.

So in that case, so and again, mass reappraisal um really satisfies the average or what we call our inner quartile range statistically, right?

So it does very well for the average and a couple ticks out of the average.

When we get into outlier properties, we have to start making individual um adjustments for those properties.

So that that may very well be a good opportunity for you to come to the informational and say, hey, I understand the land, you know, the land all around me is okay, and I'm the one odd odd duck out, and we'll have to we'll have to look at that to make a singular adjustment for your property compared to your neighbors.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on your answer to David.

So once the appraisal is done, we now permanently have the grand list in this new database format that people that anyone in the public can search and filter and do all this stuff on.

Yep.

Okay, awesome.

Yeah, it's great.

But it's it's subject to grievance.

Uh well, I mean, everything's subject to so the web the web pro database is actually part of the software, the camera software you purchased.

So that can be updated annually, and that could become a link on the assessor's web page.

So that folks, if they if they want a hard copy of their parcel card, the best thing is to email the assessor's office and get a PDF of the full card.

But going on that web pro database, um, you can you can filter and look at your leisure at any anything in town.

That's great.

Thank you.

Let's just clarify that for me.

You're gonna have all your data brought into a new grand list, and then individual people will be able to grieve their assessment if they're not uh pleased with it.

And then after that grievance procedure is fulfilled, then the grant list is set.

Yep.

So yeah, so we're gonna find so we're gonna have our informational hearings, and then basically that, and then after that, that's the town filing their abstract grant list, and then after abstract grand list, you go through a grievance process, and then yes, then you file your post-grievance, your grant list.

Um that information will be updated on that online database in in real time, so that everybody will be looking at apples to apples and saying, okay, there was a change at the preliminary, you know, there was a change at the abstract.

Great, thank you very much.

Anyone else from the public?

I have one more question, Chair.

All right, let's just uh go ahead, Amanda, and then we'll get to Mrs.

Smith.

Um how do vacancies or for sale properties affect um assessments and in what did you call them blocks, communities, neighborhoods?

In the neighbor neighborhood areas.

So um vacancies, vacancies could create um depressed land values if you have two a lot of them concentrated in certain areas.

Um though you're saying the inventory, so the the more inventory.

So we really so we can't use list prices at all.

We can only use what properties actually transact for uh for comparison.

So you know, you could have some you know, some folks will list a property for far more than what it may be worth, hoping to you know hit hit the hit the lotto, some may under under list because they're have a time motivation.

So we only want to look at properties that have actually sold to set market value.

Um increasing inventories, it's an indicator, it's a market indicator, but I haven't seen the market drop as a result.

It takes longer to sell a house now than it did in 2021, you know, 48 hours.

You know, in 2021, you're basically closed, sealed, and you know, on your way, and now you're back to your 90, 60, 90, 100 days to transact a property, which is which is typical.

Mrs.

Smith.

Jen Smith.

Um, my question is you're in a mail letters so we can set up appointments for you to come appraise our houses, or you're in a cold call us.

So how do you get our phone number?

Like, is there somewhere we need to update our phone numbers that are they on file somewhere?

Um I'm sorry, I probably I I misspoke a bit there.

So cold call is in, we're gonna come and knock on your on your door.

Yeah, yeah, we're not gonna we we can't um you know call everybody, there's just no, yeah, there's like you said, there's no way for us to know, yeah, how to.

But you so you'll be canvassing the neighborhoods, and then will there be announcements of which neighborhoods you'll be in?

Is that part of your scheduling?

So we we're gonna send out um areas of three to five hundred letters at a time.

We're not gonna really announce like what street we're gonna be on on any specific day for a number, a number of reasons.

One just um it's it's it's tough, you know.

We're out when the we're in inclement weather, we got sometimes you got road work on certain streets, we avoid that.

Um the other reason is that it's very rare, very rare, but we have had a couple of occurrences of of copycats.

So you know, you throw on an orange vest.

So it's security.

Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's it's security and just uh the the um unpredictable nature of collecting data in the field.

It's it's not it's not the easiest.

Um you know, especially here with in downtown, you have very steep slopes and very narrow streets and a lot of one ways.

So we may be parking around the corner and hoofing it, you know.

I'm telling all my guys, you know, you're you're 10, 15,000 steps a day here, you know.

So great, you know, you get paid to work out.

So um, so it's it's difficult for us to really say, you know, on the first to the fifth, we're gonna be at house X, Y, and Z.

Thank you.

Yes, Heidi.

Can I just say something real quick?

Uh um I just wanted to let everyone know that the assessor's office will answer your calls were in the office from 8 30 to 5.

If there is a question as to who's knocking on my door, give us a call.

We're on the website.

Um also uh uh Ryan's team uh have badges that were produced by the town, and um you can see their mugshots online on the assessors page.

Uh no, I'm sorry, it's on the reappraisal project page that um you just go to prod the project page from the town's website um and filter it down until you find reappraisal and you will see Ryan's team that's gonna be in Broadboro.

Thank you, Jennifer.

That's really helpful.

Sure.

Heidi.

Ryan, could you just talk about for people who are concerned about letting people in their houses and you know what the differences of letting somebody in and not letting somebody in?

Could you talk about the advantages and we had talked about that in the other meeting, I think, but I think people are reticent a little bit and or nervous about it.

If you could talk about it, yeah, no, so um it it allows us the more data we can c collect, the more accurate of a value we can render.

So it's mostly about depreciation and what condition is the house in today versus when it was originally built.

You know, have things been up, has it been fully updated?

Has it it's more of the partial updates that really is is the more important interiors for us, where um you know, as an example, a house was built in 1960 and had uh general renovation in the 80s, which is now still dated today, and then since then they've updated one bathroom, and so it's something that we're able to value each bathroom independently of one another.

We're able to put a specific value on just your kitchen, so a kitchen value can range anywhere from you know six, ten thousand dollars all the way up to fifty, sixty thousand dollars, depending on what it is.

So a kitchen value can range anywhere from you know six, ten thousand dollars all the way up to fifty, sixty thousand dollars, depending on what it is.

So having those direct data points that reflect market conditions and how a property would sell is how we can create equity.

So and it's also really important if you have structural issues.

So a lot of times what we'll say at the door if they're taxpayers hesitant and say, okay, I I understand.

Do you mind if I just ask you a couple quick questions?

And one of them might be how's your foundation?

You know, if you have cracks and you have leaky foundation, do you have any you have structural concerns?

Because those may be things that just from walking around the outside of a house, we'd have no idea.

We'd have no idea, but that would drastically change the value of your home potentially.

Um, so but otherwise, and so we're gonna we're gonna we we want to do interiors because that's kind of the gold standard.

That's the best effort we can do to create to create the most accurate database.

But if there's hesitancy, we're not at all gonna push, and we're gonna just say, Do you have a couple of minutes for some questions?

And if there's no time for that, then we'll say, hey, well, we're gonna do our best from the outside if that's all right, and then you have all these opportunities down the line to come and talk to us about it.

But it's just all about accuracy.

On the interiors, we always say, too, we don't have to go in every room.

We do not we do not want to look in your closets.

We really want to see really four things your kitchens, your bathrooms, and your basement.

Those are the if there's if that's the least that we see of the inside of your home, then that's you know, that's fine.

That's totally fine.

John.

Uh Jennifer, I was gonna ask if you could put a link to the project page on the assessors page in case people are looking for it through that way.

Very good idea, yes.

Um, and Ryan, thanks for your presentation.

This is really helpful information.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the level of certification or experience that these folks you're having go out to the neighborhoods have.

Sure.

Um, so uh Doug Davis, he's gonna be our field manager, he's been with me for three years.

Um, he's done multiple projects on his own collecting data, has seen the process from beginning to end.

Um Ben is is relatively new data collector.

He has a background in construction, a background in um you know, public, you know, working with the public and is catching on really quickly.

Um, and then we're actually going to be training a new high a new hire on December 1st, and he's gonna be attached to the hip for probably 60, 60 days, and then we'll we'll get him out in the field uh collecting on his own.

All of this data gets sifted multiple times.

So we get our initial data collection, so photos, measurements, exterior observation.

We then go through data entry where it gets sifted by our data entry clerks who really nitpick any of the data, flag questions and give it back to the data collectors where we may revisit properties, and then I do a final review, a final field review where I'm gonna drive by or into the driveway of every property in town and look at all the data again and set final values.

So we do have a couple newer data collectors coming on.

Um where the business is is growing as rapidly as we can.

Um but I'm real confident that that they're gonna be able to execute their part of the job and and uh learn a lot on the way.

That's great, thank you.

Um second question I had was when you put together the preliminary grand list, and that's what people have this chance to talk with you as a contractor about their values.

Will the comps for each property be available to them when they do that, and how how will that be available?

Sure, so all the sales will be available, but it's mass reappraisal is different from a fee appraisal.

So mass reappraisal is an entire database, and we build the database to satisfy the properties that have sold.

That data then translates to all the other properties in town that haven't sold.

Oh so it's we don't do like a fee appraisal for each parcel and say here's comp one, two, and three, and the adjustments, the adjustments are built into the data itself, and those adjustments are built based upon all the qualified sales over those three years.

So when we do get into further levels of appeal, especially for again those outlier properties, we will do you know, write-ups where it's okay, comp one, two, and three.

Um, this is these are the market conditions, these are the adjustments that we're making.

Um, but mass reappraisal is is done differently as a whole than a singular fee appraiser, um, free of fee appraisal for just one property.

We have to value all of Brattleboro.

So by doing it that way, and so again, all of our data points have factors associated with them.

So um so like uh Hardy Plank siding is plus one percent to your base square foot price, right?

Asphalt siding is minus two percent to your base, you know, so and so on and so forth.

So all those adjustments by doing it that way, all those adjustments are consistent for every every house in Brattleboro.

Whereas I don't, if any of you have dug into um a refinance, uh fee appraisal, going to refinance, and you're looking at these adjustments, they're pretty arbitrary.

I mean, they're you know, and one could we could make some some adjustments certain way for one property and make different adjustments for similar uh data another way, working in a in our computer assisted mass appraisal software and doing mass appraisal this way, it eliminates any of those inconsistencies.

That's helpful.

Uh the last question I had was when you have the abstract grand list, so it's gone through this initial process.

Um would it be possible to share with people or do a calculation to show them what their tax was in?

I assume it'll be fiscal 27 that you'll have that information on that the actual tax for each property.

Um could we also include with their information an estimated tax for that same fiscal year as if the whole new grand list was in place?

So um Rob Rob might not Rob Giotti, he's the town manager endorsed it.

He put together actually a tax estimate calculator based upon the preliminary grand list value and his estimated budget for that upcoming year.

Um disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer under it.

But yes, no, that that can be done, but I would only provide the preliminary grand list of that, and then you would have to come up because those other variables I just don't have, you know, your feet or budget.

Um and then the you know, and it really works well.

I mean, for your municipal tax rate, yeah, but obviously the education tax rate, it's that's that's harder to predict create a calculator.

That's why I was thinking go back in time because you know what your taxes were.

But what if it what if it was the new grand list value?

Let's just figure it out then and do a comp.

Yeah, you so you can make a you could make uh a calculator as simple as here was um last year's municipal tax rate, plug in your new assessment, and this is what it would be.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Gina Gina.

Can you hear me?

No.

Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Well, you should speak up because that's just for the television.

Oh, sorry.

Um does this start?

When's the date of beginning to walk around?

December 1st.

Of this year?

Of this year.

Of this year, okay.

So you're going to start sending out you're gonna send out like a kind of a letter to say this neighborhood of 500 people.

If I wanted to make an appointment and opt out of this random drop-in, could I do that?

Of course.

I could.

Okay.

And um I know this is a little picky and will you take off your how many people are coming into the house?

Oh, so if we're training, it may be two, but we're definitely taking off our shoes.

You will.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Thank you.

Yep.

There you go.

Okay, Oscar.

Yes.

So for people who do want to make appointments, do they wait to get the letter and then that will have instructions or should be people okay?

Yeah, so they'll get the letter and it'll have instructions and number uh email to call or email to set up an appointment with the assessor's office.

The data collectors will come in and get those appointments and pull those cards from our stack so that we don't go preemptively.

I will say that it never fails where we're working in a street and some that morning and someone calls at where we leave at nine, someone calls at 10 to make an appointment, and at 11, poor Mark is knocking on the on the tour.

Um it's rare, but we we do the best, we do the best we can.

And if if there ever if we ever were to cold call, an appointment had been made, we're clear we're gonna apologize and just say I will be back on your appointment day.

Sorry for the miscommunication.

Okay, great.

Yes.

Perfect and they're contacting the assessor's office it's in name and number that's okay on that letter.

Anyone else yes Heidi Well Heidi's getting up could I just ask are they are the letters coming from the assessor's office are they coming for from NEMC?

They're coming from NEMC but the return address is the assessor's office so that way we can fuss out any um undeliverables I just also clarify and obviously correct me if I'm wrong that none of while the reassessments or reappraisals are happening starting December 1st 2025 no one will see the ultimate change in their taxes until 2027.

Correct thanks for that Heidi all right any more from the public select board are there any final comments either of you two would like to make um no just really wait was there a hand up no you're just putting your code on okay I'm sorry Ryan go ahead no just um we're looking forward to working with the taxpayers of Brownboro and you know really um trying to educate as much as we can throughout the process and be there to answer any questions we are not um we become kind of fixtures of the community we're gonna be working here full time for about 16 17 months um and we're and if any any uh if anyone doesn't have the answer to the question they're all trained to get the answer so that's something that we want that type of interaction between the tax base and our data collectors our employees um you know and that we're working for you we work as if we were civil servants we can't say we are because we're a private company and the state of Vermont hasn't hasn't really laid that out for us yet but that's how we're all trained is that we work for your community um and we have your community at our our beta best interests and the better data that we can collect the all of our values are data derived the better values we can then issue back to all the taxpayers of Brattleboro and the town can um fulfill that social contract right we all want to make sure we're paying our fair share of taxes and this is the process that we have to go through to get there and we're looking forward to working with all of you.

Thank you Ryan and just so you know you and your team are very welcome here.

We're happy to have you thank you yes and we know how important your work is to our social contract.

Thank you I appreciate that.

Jennifer do you have anything you'd like to add no I just appreciate the audience coming and the select board for making this special meeting for us.

Great thank you very much and you know it's really great that this will be available for anyone who unfortunately missed tonight's evening so I thank you all for coming I'll take one more motion if anyone would like to move to adjourn.

Great all select board members in favor of adjournment please raise your hand.

Okay and that's three zero thank you all very much thank you