Most city property owners may already know: new assessments are coming

If you’re a city property owner, chances are you have already received the letter: a notification from City Assessor Rhonda Saulsbury announcing the change of assessments.
So in addition to a rocky stock market, 401Ks and grocery prices, your home value has probably risen as part of the city’s attempt to keep in flow with full market value.
Unless, of course, you’re planning to sell, and then you might be quite pleased to have a higher price tag on your commode — tucked between what the New York Post has deemed to be the hottest housing markets in the entire country, City Manager Rachael Tabelski said.
“I can't say that assessments will be raised every year at the evaluation of homes and sale prices. As I was just telling some council members, the New York Post just did an article on Saturday afternoon throughout the entire country. The hottest housing market in the entire country is Rochester, New York. Houses don't sit for more than 13 days in Rochester, New York. Number three is Buffalo, New York. So we are right inside that area,” Tabelski said during City Council’s conference session Monday evening. “We've always had homes that are affordable, that people want to live in. So as they do come into it, people come into our area and buy homes, and values do tend to go up. But we do have a press release that will be issued … just letting everyone know that we strive to maintain 100% equalization, and that's the sale price to assessment ratio. We aim to keep our assessments at 100% full market value across all property types.”
When constituents come to City Hall and ask about their assessments being upwards of $200,000, city staff asks them, “Would you sell your home at this amount, less or more?” Tabelski said.
“And they always say more. And so again, we try with our assessor's office, it’s completely independent to have fair assessment values across the entire city,” she said. “(Along with the assessment) This piece of paper has explicit instructions on how to challenge your assessment. So I encourage everyone to take advantage of coming in, getting the market data that you can look at, look at the comparables for your property and have an informal review prior to the final review with the city assessor's office and then with the final review is the formal grievance in the city clerk's office.
“You can file any time before May 29, but I do encourage everyone to attend the informal review day and to come to the assessor to get all the information they need for comparables so they can see if there's any way they can lower the assessments,” Tabelski said. “And as everyone knows, as assessments are spread out across all properties, that doesn't mean the tax rate will increase or that you will have an increase in taxes. This year, we lowered the tax rate, because everyone remembers, by 50 cents.”
She also wanted to remind citizens that the city tax is 25% of the total bill, with county being another 25% and school taxes taking up the remaining 50% of the total amount. The city tax rate is $8.46 per $1,000 of assessed value.
“And I think Council, with our budgeting process, continues to work as hard as they can to provide the services that our residents want and enjoy at the lowest cost possible,” she said.
Councilman Bob Bialkowski mentioned that a couple of his constituents called him about their raised assessments, and he noted the misconception about who controls that process.
“I’ve run into this repeatedly, where people think that council directs the assessor to go doing new assessments so we can get more money,” Bialkowski said. “A lot of the people just don't accept the fact that, the assessors told me, we have no influence. We don't tell her what to do.”
Information about property assessment, inventory data and sale information became available as of April 7 HERE.
Part of the process includes the assessor’s office running each property through an appraisal software system, comparing the building style, square footage, year built, bedrooms, baths, and lot size, against recent sales data. A field review is completed to determine the fair full market value based on this data, the assessor’s press release states.
Grievance Day is set for May 29, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. in Council Chambers, second floor, City Hall.