 recording. Okay so the chair first must make a preliminary statement pursuant to chapter 20 the act of 2021 this meeting will be conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by zoom or by telephone also via www.amherstma.gov no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted but every every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access meetings in real time by technological means once again in the website www.amherstma.gov and I can attest that the meetings are can also be watched in retrospect live and living color on the on the Amherst YouTube channel do we have any members of the public with us today it does not appear that we do so I also just want to make sure that we are recording this meeting so if anyone else is doing so at this time please notify us now hearing none all right well I will share my screen and where is it this one okay so this is our agenda for today so I will keep this up if we need to refer back to it so the very first thing on the agenda is going to be the minutes from the last meeting do we want to table these for now since Ken is not here Lee was the only one present in this current meeting or are you comfortable Richard with approving these I'm not I briefly at the at the the video of that meeting just so the public is looking at this sometime later I was not present at the last meeting there was a quorum 16th meeting Ken is not who was at that meeting is not present today so we're not in a situation where we can approve these minutes today I think I think it would be better to table them to the next the approval to the next scheduled meeting that's fine so we will table these for our August meeting so then moving along next thing on the agenda is the excise abatements so here you will see a 2019 bill on the tap there's just one in the amount of $33.75 second you will see a 21 build again just one in the amount of $97.34 and then there are 27 for the calendar year of 2022 totaling the amount of $2,211.54 so the total for week June 13th through June 28th is $2,342.63 Kim could you hit the large button one time I can I have to put my large nose right into the screen thank you is that better yeah okay thank you move to approve those abatements from the week of June 13th well the two weeks of June 13th through to June 28th move to approve those abatements second all those in favor please say hi hi all right it's moving along we have the week of July 6th through the 7th well just two days you will see that there are four abatements for the calendar year 2022 in the amount of $183.90 move I move to approve those abatements second all those in favor please say hi hi okay moving on we have July 12th through the 15th two from calendar year 2021 in the amount of $134.67 and there are eight for calendar year 2022 in the amount of $962.15 for a total of $1,096.82 I move to approve those abatements second all those in favor please say hi hi okay moving on July 20th through July 21st there is only four for calendar year 2022 totaling $225.14 I move to approve those abatements second all those in favor please say hi hi okay and so moving on we have here the omitted and revised commitment for 114 Linden Ridge Road so this property is this this bill was missed when entering the final tax bills so you will see the amount here sorry keep moving that you will see the amount here of $12,838.57 this property something had happened in our billings in our assessing system that caused it to not bill correctly so that's that that correction so this page here is the commitment to the I'm sorry the the yes the commitment to the collector and then you go ahead I'm just say don't I see documentation about this property later on you do yep yep there's also the CPA tax here in the amount of $353.25 that page there is also for the collector then you will see them both on the same page here for the accounting office so again the $12,838.57 and the $353.25 that's the CPA so total preliminary bills for this property was $13,191.82 and again here you'll just see the billing so this was actually entered into the billing system here which is that's what's that showing is it important that we know why this was submitted originally or do we care um yeah it's just again it was just the fact that it was I don't think I have any calculation added down here to the end of this just bear with me yeah oh I do okay so for some reason um this property was not picking up both the land and the building um I believe if I remember that that we did some work on this before we've done others like this well I don't know if this one specifically but we have done others like this um I believe that I'm just looking for yes so this was based on a partial completion of the building um and so the building was completed and for some reason when that occurred it didn't I think I had done something wrong in the assessing system and it wasn't calculating the value correctly so going back to fix that um you'll see my math here um I think I remember there was something about the second floor wasn't finished or um I think that's a possibility I think that now that you say that I recall that as well um so the building is 100 complete at this point uh showing that total value there which again you'll see appear um and then so what I did was I took the tax rate figured out the total for the year divided it by two so that 12 000 is there that's what the preliminary bills would be based on and then you'll see down here where I did the calculation for the CPA so it's a little bit longer um but you'll see I came up with the 353 dollars and 25 cents um road is off of um station road near the belcher town line right yes yes all right um and so that's just the back of the record card and again you'll see the condition the percent there's nothing uh pending anymore this is a finished building so Lee you were correct this was not completed prior to preliminary bills so again let me just go back up here so you can see um the breakdown of what we were doing here so here we have the CPA third charge of the 353 25 and then the real estate itself 12 838 and 57 cents for a total of 13 191 dollars and 82 cents is what we were billing for the first half do we do one vote here yes okay so so I move that we approve the commitments and the other documentation with our signatures second all those in favor please say hi hi okay so moving on to the next one we have 11 burgundy lane um this is uh the page to the collector in the amount of 2962 dollars and 91 cents and then again you'll see the CPA tax for 56 98 scrolling down here you'll see them both on the same page for the commitment to the accounting office so again 2962 91 in real estate 56 dollars and 98 cents in CPA for a grand total of 319 dollars and 89 cents for the preliminary tax bills again you'll see here this is just showing that the bills have been inputted into the billing system giving you the breakdown here again and then continuing on there will be documentation of what I was doing um so again here you'll see in 22 it was uh it oh this one must have been the one that was not billing correctly for some reason um sorry I got those two mixed up so that the previous one was based on a completion of construction this one was just for some reason not billing at all um so same process I took the value times the tax rate to figure out the total for the year and then divided that by two digits to get the preliminaries and then again you'll see my calculation with the CPA just in case you're not familiar I suppose with this process what you do is you take for residential properties um you take the value minus 100 000 multiply that by 3 percent divide by a thousand um and then multiply by the tax rate um and then that gives you the year's worth of CPA so then again I divided that by two to get the preliminary so you'll see that again the 56 98 the first 100 000 the value is exempt right on on residential properties only so for commercial industrial um that does not occur so you would shorten up this by taking the value times the 3 percent divided by a thousand times the tax rate and then depending on if you were looking for half the year or not you could divide by two okay all right so let me go back up here to the amount so you can see those again so here again we have the CPA at 56 98 and the real estate at 2962 91 for a total of 319 dollars and 89 cents and again this was billed this way because for some reason the billing system and the assessing system didn't talk to each other and we didn't get a bill for this property I moved to approve the commitment and the accompanying documents with our signatures second all those in favor please say I I okay okay moving along I think we have one more can I ask you how do you become aware of these little glitches well they're not really glitches but they're omissions right yeah um it depends on what kind of is happening um sometimes it's something that I'll come across before I actually do the file where um you know I know that there's going to be maybe I've pulled the file already and it's being put into the billing system but I've recognized that um there's a building that is being renovated or being built that needs to have an a change in value before the preliminary bills go out um in the case of one completely missing sometimes it's a matter of somebody calling us saying I didn't get my tax bill can you send me a copy and we realize that it didn't get built um sometimes that's nice of them to do that I mean they know one's coming there should be one coming anyway so they didn't get a copy of it they know maybe their neighbors did or someone else in town did so they know it's out there um and in that case sometimes that happens other times it's just a matter of I'm looking at something I happened to come across this property and I noticed that something doesn't look right on the records on our record cards and I say okay well you know in this case we'd be looking at it and we'd say okay last year's value was 278.6 um how come it didn't have a bill this year so I would go in and I would look at permits and see you know what happened there um sometimes it's a matter of a permit triggering something so it really kind of depends on the situation um also just for peace of mind if this happens and it goes uncaught and someone doesn't call us and say hey I didn't you know didn't didn't get a bill I'm wondering where it is the final bills will cause this to be found um so essentially what would happen is my count wouldn't match when I pull it out of the billing system or I'm sorry when I pull it out of vision the assessing system and put it into munis it wouldn't match because munis wouldn't create a bill for it so it would have a odd number of parcels so I'd have to go and find what's wrong somewhere so it takes some time sometimes but really dependent on the situation as to how it gets found you have an internal audit process too right that we do yeah that should yeah bounce it up yes yes so and you'll see often in the preliminary and the final tax bills that we have the supplemental bills and those are for you know like someone who's building a property uh we don't want to slam them in in their final tax bills so we try to get that all into the system for the preliminary tax bills so they get a piece of the building down and then they get the rest of the building in their final tax bills um just makes it more equitable for their pocket and just much easier to to take as a taxpayer so all right so let me get back up here where you can see the totals for this one there they are so again three thousand nineteen dollars and eighty nine cents and I think we just approved that our oh did we I'm sorry I think we did that yeah okay all right so moving on to the next one I think there was one more yes um this is the big enchilada isn't it this is yes this is the actual or the the preliminary tax bills in total so we have the amount of twenty nine thousand I'm sorry twenty nine million two hundred twelve thousand eight hundred fifty eight dollars and sixty six cents so here you'll see on this page is for the the uh tax collector I want to make sure you said that amount correctly can you say absolutely so twenty nine million two hundred twelve thousand eight hundred fifty eight and sixty six cents okay um so here's the page for the uh collector um down here you'll see the CPA tax to the collector in the amount of six hundred seventy five thousand six hundred forty seven dollars and forty four cents and then you will see those values where we got them from munis um I think the the accounting portion is after so um well I think personal property comes next first yeah personal property comes next let's just vote on the real estate for and the CPA first okay so that's two that's two sets of signatures for yeah yeah so first we'll do real estate at 29 million two hundred twelve thousand eight hundred fifty eight dollars and sixty six cents all right I moved to approve that commitment second all those in favor please say aye aye okay and then we'll do the CPA for six hundred seventy five thousand six hundred uh yes six hundred seventy five thousand six hundred forty seven dollars and forty four cents yeah I think this is the last time Lee and I are doing this yeah right yeah I moved to approve the CPA commitment for CPA funds I moved to approve those second all those in favor please say aye okay so let me just skip by personal property for a quick second because I think here is just so you can see there's the commitment to accounting it does show the personal property tax as well but I just wanted to skip through that quickly to show you the real estate in the CPA is there as well so let me just go back here then to personal property so this page here is again for the collector in the amount of one million two hundred twenty two thousand nine hundred eighteen dollars and ninety nine cents and again you'll see here that that amount has been entered into the billing system and then again back down here you'll see it's entered on the commitment to accounting and the CPA I think is at the bottom of that form yes yeah okay so the total that we're committing for both real estate and personal property including CPA is thirty million four hundred thirty five thousand seven hundred seventy seven dollars and sixty five cents okay I move to approve our document our signatures on the personal property documents as well as this commitment to accounting second all those in favor please say aye aye okay okay I'll just catch up with you for a quick second on my notes here okay um so the last thing here is the lean for chapter 61 um so we have a new oh okay so this lean has not been re-recorded in a very long time um so when talking to the owners of this property we've realized that uh the acreage is not reflecting what's actually in chapter so there is new owners on this property as well so we're waiting on a check from them to re-record the lean but at the moment this is for a release of chapter so that we can record a proper lean for them um so here we have the property uh located on pot wine lane what was recorded in the past was uh 24.82 acres of which 17.5 were in chapter land um so they were farming over half of the acreage um I I believe let me just quickly oops um let me quickly pull up this parcel and I can tell you what the correct um acreage is on that so um so this is not about a transaction is that correct this is it's about a transaction as well as a correction so there are new owners for this particular property um and and they brought it to your attention um nope they we just we when when seeing that there were new owners on the property we went to go record a new lean and when doing that we have to make sure that where it says here 24 acres of which however many are classified we were realizing that that number isn't matching what we have on our records so what we have right now and this also matches the deed so that's really important um because we need to make sure that our information is matching the registry of deeds um so so parcel that contains the farming the chapter land is 14.49 acres um and then the the part of the property that has their house on it is 1.373 acres so we just need to clean up this this um this lean and we will do so once we receive the check from them to re-record um which we would need anyway because they're new owners so we need to put the correct owner's names on there so normally the process would be if the acreage was correct to just re-record a lean with the new owner's names on it in this case because we see that it's not accurate to what's listed on the registry of deeds on their deed as well as our records here in the billing system um we want to release what's there because it's it's inaccurate so is there actually less chapter land than we originally thought or more? There's less land all together than what's recorded on this lean so um total there's close to 15 acres um with the house and the the um chapter where this obviously is showing 24 acres so we have a little bit less than what what was recorded and at the time of this recording it's a possibility that there was some extra acres and maybe the original owners had sold off some pieces but regardless of the fact we need to correct the lean so that if there is ever a title search or any sort of documentation that needs to be pulled for you know some sort of legal issue this will cause a big issue showing that our records and the the deed itself does not match this lean. Yeah I spent two summers in college doing title searching at the family law firm so I have some memory of all this stuff but um so the the the uh the blanks at the top do they those get filled in at the registry of deeds at some point? So those are um sometimes when you file a deed they give you a book page and document number um I'm unfamiliar with why you would get that and when you would get that um and then again also with the the um certificate of the title this is not having to do with a title so we wouldn't need a number in that place and in this case the last lean that was recorded did not get a document number so that's why we left those two things blank and then the the blanks here are just for um the X's. So the name the name on the the name of the owner is that the new owner the old owner? This here is the new owner. Okay. I'm sorry I'm sorry that's the old owner. So basically what just to summarize what we're looking is for a vote to approve this release so that we can correct the acreage and add the new owner's name on there. So there's going to be a subsequent filing that um would the registry of deeds after this? That's correct yes. Okay. Now if for some reason the owners decide that they are not going to put this property in Chapterland we would have to create a rollback tax but but assuming that they're going to continue farming they will send us a check for $105 written out to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts so that we can record a lean in their name with the correct acreage. And just so the pub just so it's clear for anyone who's watching this rollback tax would get paid by whom the new owner? At this point yes the new owners unless there's been an agreement at closing it's assessed to the owner at the time. Okay. I move to approve our signatures on this document on this release. Second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay excellent well that's it for documents so I'm going to stop sharing. Now wait a minute wait a minute don't we have to pick a new date? Yep not yet. So first I'm going to give you the assessor's update. Okay. There's not a whole lot to say right now but next week is the assessor's school at UMass which is really exciting because it's the first time that we've done this in two years. So that's really really great to see that it's able to be back in person again. I will be attending only on Monday because I have completed all my classes that are required for my designation and I have received my designation. So basically what I need to do now is just keep up credits. Every I forget if it's every three years or every five now. It's a matter of state law that you have to do that? Yes. Yes. So I will have to keep up a certain amount of credits in order to keep my designation. If I don't do that I lose my designation then I'll have to go back and take those classes again. And I can attest that the school is a ripper all in good time. It's great. It's really great because you make these connections that you wouldn't necessarily make. Are you going to specialize at this class? So the class that I'm taking is about eight of 58 and the new valuing system for the personal property class. So it's only one day which is sort of disappointing. I'd like to hear more about the personal property but again there's only so much you can say about personal property. I would love to put every resident every tax paying resident in Amherst through the whole prop two and a half course. It's a lot of information but it's very easily miskewed and a lot of people don't understand that it's not two and a half percent of their tax value or their tax dollars. It's two and a half percent as a whole of what we paid in last year or in the prior year I should say. So it's something easily mistaken and very something that I often explain to people during final tax bills. So the other things that are going on is Roy will be here. He's our consultant for the overvaluation. I'm sorry the revaluations. He will be here next week to take the remainder of the building permits and help me complete those. Once those are done then we'll start working on the actual valuation for the fiscal year. I have been and Teresa has been working with the senior center on the tax work off program. There's just a lot of new faces in Town Hall and in senior center as well. So we're just trying to all get on the same page and be most efficient as possible if there's any changes that we want to make to the system. Now would be the time to do it since we're all new. Without invading anyone's privacy how many people participate in the tax work off program? I think it depends year to year. In the past two years we really haven't had anybody but prior to that it sounds like there were some years that we filled all the slots and I if I recall correctly there was 30 something slots. But you know it's kind of right now it's kind of a struggle to get people to want to do this because it's just nerve wracking with COVID being around and the past two years they didn't offer the program. The senior center does a nice job of distributing of disseminating the information about this so that people can see. Yes and we're working on the website as well to make it a little bit better for an easier to follow and just have more information on there for that program as well. And hopefully once we get this all straightened out we can work on the veterans work off as well and try to make that as easy and you know most information on the web as possible. Also when talking with the senior center myself and Jen LaFountain the collector had volunteered that if they wanted to do an in-person and or assume seminar about the tax work off about any exemptions about just how taxes work in general that we would be happy to do that. So it looks like we're trying to schedule something in early December to make that available for the seniors or anybody that wants to join that meeting it will be at the senior center. Has that ever happened before? Not that I'm aware of but again you know I'm not sure. We have had informational things on the exemptions over at the senior center at times I think we actually had one down at Greenleaves at one time too. Would there be any value in getting that up on the YouTube channel so the general public would have access to it? Absolutely and one of the suggestions was actually to do something very specific just to that. We can put out just informational things to watch or we could try to do a webinar where people are able to attend and then just record because they'll have questions that you know we may not address in just a regular discussion without participation. So there's definitely some you know we're working on some ways to answer people's questions and we want to make sure that those who can't attend for any reason whether they're just not able to get out of their house or they're working or whatever the case is that they still have that available to them. And it's nice to have something recorded where people are talking because you know sometimes just reading this stuff is very dry and so people start reading it and they're like oh forget it I'm not you know so it's nice to have somebody talking. Right yeah I'd be happy to be present for that either either in person or electronically just to watch that happen. Okay I will keep you posted then like I said we're working on early December for now and we're working on what exactly we're going to talk about so it's a great time to do it because text bills will be going out at the end of December so it'll be fresh in people's minds if they're eligible if they want to inquire about exemptions you know veterans blind senior whatever the case is and then also the work-off program will be talked about then too so I don't know exactly the requirements and deadlines for the work-off program yet but you know some things certainly will be addressed then for that. So those are the really the most important things that are happening right now. Can I add will the current status of any presentation to the town council for regarding residential exemption? At this moment we've not heard from town council whether they want a presentation. Oh all right but you have one prepared. We do at this point the data is from last fiscal year so depending on if and when they would want a presentation we may have to update it but yes that that powerpoint that I had sent you guys last week I think or two weeks ago is is what we would be using for our presentation. We've got a we've got an actual you have a scheduled appearance don't you that's mandated by law right in the fall? Yes and do we have a date for that? I don't think so not I don't think yet it's usually I think early November late October depending on when we get certification from the state we have to have our values approved before we can do that and so last year as you saw we had to do it twice because we we jumped the gun so we had everything all approved by the council but we didn't have it approved by the state first and we have to do that. So yep we gotta it'll all depend I mean this year could be slightly slower than normal just because it's the revaluation and there's a lot more entailed with it but I would still expect probably beginning of November. Okay I can't think of anything else to talk about how about you Lee? No I think all right just to confirm our status that is myself and Richard now we're good until when? We're good until the end of June. That's right 2023. Yeah exactly. Yes yes and if if either of you have any thoughts of someone who may be interested in coming on to the board please let me know because because we have two slots empty at the end of next June if we don't fill those we do not have a qualifying board so we're hopeful to recruit before that happens so again if you have any thoughts of anybody that might be interested please let me or Paul know so we can reach out to them. Okay okay I can think of one I have one person in mind I'll get back to you about them. Okay all right that would be great. All right well hearing that there's nothing else to talk about I'm just looking at the calendar for our next meeting and I'm thinking August 18th which is also a Thursday. I already have it scheduled. Oh perfect. Hang on a minute there's something wrong so I have my calendar here you want to do it at the same time I have a schedule for 9 30. Yes if that's continuing to work for everybody that's great. Hang on a minute. Sure. What is it about the no I think I think that'll work 9 30 on Thursday August 18th. Yes okay all right so we will schedule that again our next meeting will be August 18th at 9 30 a.m. And so before we go into executive session we do have one discussion of an over-evaluation to talk about and then we will adjourn immediately after that. I'm sorry the the executive session regards the over-evaluation. Yes okay so that's the generic reason we're presenting for while we have to go into executive session. Yes okay I move that we so I'm going to move to go into executive session. Second but for that purpose we will not return in and only that purpose and then we will and we will not return after leaving Zoom. Correct. Yeah all right all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay all right I will stop the recording. Thank you.