State's rules on valuation irk localities

WORCESTER -- Some town officials and state legislators are complaining about the new procedures that the state Revenue Department is using to calculate the amount and value of state-owned land within municipalities.

The Revenue Department is trying to get definitive valuations of state-owned land in the next three years, using the knowledge of municipal assessors. The aim is to see what the state should pay towns in lieu of property taxes.

The state faces accusations of enforcing a mandate with no basis in state law, of being oblivious to the time needed to resolve a parcel's value when the state and town disagree, and of subjecting communities to needless duress by delaying tax-rate approval until the land is valued.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that the state does not have deeds to some parcels of land it claims to own.

"Is there a legal mandate to force towns to do this in 2004?" said state Representative Anne M. Gobi, Democrat of Spencer. "I don't see any. I did not see anything that these rules have been promulgated by DOR."

The Revenue Department has the authority to make tax-rate approval contingent on completing the land-valuation process, an agency spokeswoman told The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester.

"It may not be in statute," said Joan Grourke, the spokeswoman, "but the DOR commissioner has the authority to promulgate rules and regulations, and that is what is going on here."

The department changed the procedure because "the existing approach is costly and the methodology is not readily transparent to local assessors."

Some local assessors said they were not immediately aware of the changes, because they do not have access to the Internet, and believed the project was not supposed to start until 2005.