District Tracks Assessed Valuation
Huntington School District officials are closing tracking the district's assessed valuation. For many years, the figure has trended lower, meaning the tax base is shrinking. That puts upward pressure on tax rates.
Acting Town Assessor Roger D. Ramme sent a letter to the district on May 1 informing school officials that the tentative 2013 assessed valuation for Huntington is $45,119,306. The figure is slightly above the current tax year assessed valuation of $45,113,410 and substantially higher than the estimate of $44,813,410 used to develop the recently 2013/14 school budget that is up for a community vote on May 21.
If the tentative figure held, it would be very good news for district taxpayers. The estimated tax increase of 3.52 percent would drop to 2.82 percent, a substantial difference. But, Mr. Ramme expects a decline in the tentative assessed valuation before tax rates are set in the fall. The assessor gave three reasons he believes assessed values will fall:
• New and renewal exemption applications that were timely filed and are still being processed;
• Prior year finalized litigation and court-ordered reductions (commercial and residential);
• Corrections/decisions approved by the Town's Board of Assessment Review.
The final tax roll and assessment figures will be available in September. If the district's assessed valuation falls below the figure used to develop the 2013/14 budget, Huntington School Board members could cover the tax shortfall by appropriating money from the fund balance or setting the tax rate higher than $220.49, which is what officials estimated the rate would be.
"The May estimate is good news for the district," Superintendent James W. Polansky said. "Although we expect downward adjustments prior to release of the actual valuation in the fall, we are now hopeful that this valuation will settle in at a level higher than that projected within our budget. The Board will then have the option of returning the resulting savings to district taxpayers in the form of a reduced tax rate."
In recent years, whenever the assessed valuation has fallen below the budgeted amount, trustees appropriated more monies from the district's reserves.