MINUTES OF THE VALA DIRECTORSí MEETING
NOVEMBER 1, 2006
The meeting was called to
order by President Mark Paulsen at 9:00 a.m. with 27 in attendance as follows:
Galen E Mudgett, Jr Sharon Windsor
Pete Rimsa Proctor Rutland
Tom Vickery Stowe Lamoille
John Vickery Burlington Chittenden
Tambrey Vutech Woodstock(ret) Windsor
Mark Paulsen Colchester Chittenden
Carol Hammond Vernon Windham
Pat French Randolph Orange
Louise Ferris-Burt Bethel Windsor
Daphne Gratiot Pomfret Windsor
Howard Burgess Rutland Rutland
Todd LeBlanc S
Burlington Chittenden
Carlton Domey Cabot Washington
Bill Johnson PVR
Lyle K Morrison Grafton Windham
Donna Durkee Thetford Orange
Janet Stowel Thetford Orange
Elaine Coonradt Shaftsbury Bennington
Angie Abbatello Shaftsbury Bennington
Bill Hammond Vernon Windham
John Wetzel Fairlee Orange
Charles Merriman Lobbyist
Randy Viens Essex Chittenden
Caroline Lockyer Montpelier Washington
Sheldon L Smith Topsham Orange
Pat Plaisted Topsham Orange
Doug
Lay PVR
A motion was made by Daphne
to accept the minutes of the Sept 6, 2006 meeting. The motion was seconded and passed.
A motion was made by Daphne
to accept the minutes of the Sept. 15, 2006 Annual Meeting with two amendments
(previously sent to membership).
The motion was seconded and passed.
The Treasurerís report is as
follows:
Previous balance as of
9/6/2006 $ 5,298.35
Expenses
Annual
Meeting $ 1,077.00
Food
& Serving Supplies
26.24
Plaque
74.00
Postage 125.10
Donation
for mtg space 25.00
$ 1,327.34
Dues
Paid $
921.00
Ending Balance as of
10/31/2006 $ 4,892.01
There are 136 paid members to
date for the 2006-2007 year.
Louise reported that there
have been 37 ìhitsî on the VALA website from a number of different states here
in the USA as well as Israel, Canada and France.
It is encouraging to see the
growth in membership as well as increased interest in the VALA organization as
a whole.
Mark thanked all those who
attended the VLCT Annual Meeting and helped defeat the part of VLCTís municipal
policy which would have eliminated the position of Lister in the state. Paragraph C of the education finance
reform recommendations read as follows:
1. Have the state appraise all property and notify towns of
grand list values to use for school and municipal taxes. Defeated 32-22.
2. Have the state bill for and collect all education property
taxes. Defeated
32-22.
Concerns were voiced that the
VLCT board is made up of and is dominated by larger, wealthier towns.
Bill Johnson—PVR
Bill reported that the Mass
Appraisal Course was well attended as well as the Data Collection Course. Feedback has been good from both
courses.
Other issues will be covered
later in the meeting. He will be
attending a meeting on net book valuation for utilities later today and he
feels that this issue is moving forward on the assumption that since it is
current law that it will be implemented.
There are concerns on both sides about the new system so just have to
wait to see how it plays out, but at the tax department they are assuming it
will be law. There are lots of
programming and other things that will have to be done to implement it.
Travel Trailers: Some members of the Ways and
Means Committee said they would like to review policy on assessing travel
trailers so they sent it to a summer study on the issue headed by Emily Bergquist
of Legislative Council. Some towns do not assess them while others who have a
large number of travel trailers which add a significant amount to the grand
list want to continue to assess them.
A meeting was called to get the parties together to see if there was any
change that could be proposed to Ways and Means. The majority of Listers want to let them go as well as campground
owners. A proposal of
changing how they are assessed to satisfy both sides
was to identify or define
seasonal campgrounds as campgrounds that are closed November to April and
cannot be used for year round occupancy.
The 180 day test would be
kept in place but if the travel trailer is in a seasonal campground, it would
be exempted from assessment and taxation. This would eliminate most travel
trailers and the ones who move around all the time. Therefore the ones who are sited on their own parcel of land
or who are located in a year round campground would be assessed while the
travel trailers in a seasonal campground would not.
Two questions to put to the
membership present:
1. To create a definition for a seasonal
campground as one that is closed from November to April, and in turn, exempt
any travel trailer within a seasonal campground.
2. Do we need to keep the 180 day test, or
can we go to a simple April 1 date like the rest of our real estate.
The first question passed
unanimously, but the second question passed with only eight of the membership
present actually voting----5 ayes and 3 nays.
There was further discussion
on defining travel trailers which would use registration as a criteria, but it was felt that there would be
enforcement issues and would necessitate the involvement of Dept of Motor
Vehicles. There was a question as
to whether DMV would have the legal right to go into private parks to see who
is registered and who is not—then the problem that some would be
registered out of state.
The question was raised as to
whether a decision had to be reached today or, since this is not a cut and
dried issue and since there were so few Listers in attendance at this meeting,
could this be put out on the List Serve and poll a greater number of Listers as
to their thoughts and opinions.
Mark will get back to Emily
with the results of todayís vote but explain to her that the questions will be
put out via the email so that other Listers can weigh in. This issue will be discussed again at
the January VALA meeting
Charles Merriman—Net
Book Valuation of Utilities
There is a policy idea of
moving the assessment base of transmission and distribution properties only
from fair market value to net book value.
This was brought before the Commerce Committee last year and some
interest was exhibited, but then died. Mr. Merriman wanted to let everyone know
that there are still those who want to push this forward so he is looking for
feedback. When questioned
why VALA should consider it again with still no facts or figures, he apologized
for not getting the information but was hoping at this meeting to get some opinions
from VALA as to their feelings and concerns. A motion was made by Tom Vickery to postpone any further
discussion until the January 2007 meeting.
Bill Johnson said there was
decision in the Washington Electric case.
The towns won the case (there were 5 towns involved)—in 3 towns,
the judge set values higher and in 2 towns set lower values.
One of the main reasons in
moving the assessment of utilities from fair market to net book is to get
utility property out of the field of litigation—put on a fair standard so
that if the rules are followed, there would be no litigation. In the Washington Electric case, it was
a battle of appraisals—lots of money spent with no good effect and still
may go to Supreme Court. The
courtís decision gave no clear guidelines or precedents for future suits. There is a need to move to another
standard, and there are other possible standards, but the State would like the
Listers to consider net book.
There followed a lengthy
discussion on the problems that could arise with moving to a net book
assessment. These included the
loss of revenue to the towns, which would result in an annual loss of
about $4,000,000 per year---approximately $3,000,000 to the school side and
approximately $1,000,000 on the municipal side. Mr. Merriman explained that the new VELCO project coming on
line would buffer the loss. He
also stated that VLCT does not support the notion of using VELCOís new project
to absorb the loss in revenue and would only support moving to net book if it
does not result in any diminution of value/revenue.
Caroline commented that at a
meeting with the North East Regional, the consensus was to stay away from net
book valuation because of the problems it causes, one of which is that it
allows the utilities to play with figures. Also, a committee comprised of VALA, VLCT and PV&R will
meet with the Commerce Committee.
The utilities will be invited to attend to answer questions but will not
be a part of the committee.
Another view expressed was
that if the utilities were to be assessed at net book, they should be on the
municipal grand list but should be taken off the equalized grand list and
should not be part of the ratio for the towns. After more discussion, it was decided that because there are
so many issues to work through, the question should go back to a committee who
would bring a report back to the January meeting.
The motion had been made to
table the discussion on utility assessment, understanding that the committee
will pursue it and that Mr. Merriman and his friends will come back to the
January, 2007 VALA meeting with hard numbers. Hopefully the facts and figures will be available to the
membership to peruse before the meeting.
The motion was seconded and passed.
Automation of Current Use
reporting:
By April of 2007, PV&R
with NEMRC will develop an electronic means of reporting current use.
This will eliminate the paper
trail and will allow changes, corrections, etc to be made between Montpelier
and the towns. Notices will be
generated based on the electronic filings. If this electronic reporting of current use is successful,
then the next step will be the equalization sales study. We as VALA will assist in the training
at the MOMís, TOECís and other PVR sponsored events. If anyone has any ideas, cautions, suggestions, please
contact Mark Paulsen.
Municipal Land Records: Computerizing land records from the
Town Clerks Office—the commission has not been doing much in the last few
years so it is questionable if the computerization will happen in the near
future. A lot of towns do not want
this information on the computer, would prefer it to stay in paper format, but
there is also the other extreme of some towns wanting everything
computerized. There is the
possibility that if automation were to go forward, the next step would be the
property tax transfer forms being completed on line by the attorneys at the
time of sale. But the timeline of
this happening is about 5 years. A
big concern is a property identifier that will be standardized, but it would be
hard to accomplish this because of the differences between towns and how they
have their records organized.
Review of the MOMís sessions:
John Vickery said he enjoyed
the workshop he did on reading and understanding financial statements. There were a lot of good comments and
suggestions.
Daphne said that the new Lister
in her office benefited from workshops that dealt with specific issues. An idea was presented that perhaps
handouts from the workshops could be made available.
Election of officers: Vice President, Treasurer, Clerk. Mark asked if the existing officers
would be willing to continue these jobs for another year. A motion was made by Tom to re-elect
Pat, Louise and Carol for these positions. The motion was seconded and passed.
Committee Appointments—Chairpersons:
Education: John Vickery
Time Line: Eliminate
Exemptions: Change to Exemptions/Pilot: Caroline Lockyer
Equalization: and combine State
Valuation Over-sight Comm: Todd LeBlanc
Bylaws: Peter Rimsa
Microsolve/CAMA: Pauline Moore
Lister of Year: [according to
By-laws]—Caroline, Mark, and Galen
Legislative + Legislative
Calendar: Caroline
Act 68 etal: Eliminate as a
committee and deal with it under legislative committee
These committees are
important and through them, VALA has been able to get things out of Montpelier
that we wanted or at least were not as bad as they might have been as a result
of being in Montpelier and spending the time in the committee rooms.
The previous Ways and Means
Committee liked our presence in their committee meetings and a relationship was
started with Senate Finance who had started asking us to come and give input. They respected our input-- this means a
lot and we have worked hard to get to this point, and good results have come
from it.
Mark received a copy of a letter
from John Fike to the Tax Commissioner interested in making sure that the CAMA
2000 changes are done well and in a business like manner. Tom mentioned that the CAMA Committee
will be meeting on November 6 with Microsolve to discuss issues.
John suggested that VALA get
a copy of the contract with Microsolve to make sure that contract is being
complied with. Tom said one of the
suggestions for November 6 meeting is that each member of the CAMA Committee gets
a copy of the contract. Emphasis
is on getting better response from Microsolve.
Mark received another letter
from Fairlee questioning whether the vacant land category should be dropped off
the equalization study. There is acknowledgement that the vacant
land category skews the study in a certain way every time. IAAO also recognizes this.
If we recognize that this is
a state wide problem, VALA needs to suggest that the land category be dropped
from the sales study. Bill Smith
suggested that VALA make this recommendation to the State because the
Legislature would have to be the ones to make the final decision. Bill was asked to crunch some numbers
to see the real impact of the land sales. There was further discussion on the
effects of the land sales on the equalization study, the distortions, and extreme
sales which are now included in the study, etc.
Tom offered to conduct a
seminar on land valuation and the development of a land schedule. This would be a more detailed and
comprehensive approach. He
suggested a low cost one day seminar that wouldnít cost VALA anything.
Pat suggested that it could
be a free seminar since there is enough money in the treasury.
Hard costs would be covered
so that they wouldnít be out of Tomís pocket.
After much discussion the
following motion was made:
Shall VALA appropriate a $500
stipend plus cost of materials to put on a one day seminar on land schedules to
be presented by Tom Vickery at Vermont Technical College on December 20, 2006, under
the auspices of the Town of Randolph and VALA. Further, VALA will authorize this seminar to go forward only
if a minimum of 25 people will commit to attending the seminar. The motion was seconded and passed.
Notice for the seminar will
be published over the List Serve.
The next meeting will be held
on January 3, 2007 at the Randolph Town Office.
Peter Rimsa made a motion to
adjourn the meeting. The motion
was seconded and passed.
Respectfully submitted,
Carol Hammond