LISBON

The Lisbon Town Council is waiting to hear back from legal council before deciding how to proceed with the assessing firm it hired to conduct a revaluation that missed a June 30 deadline.

Assessor William Van Tuinen of William Van Tuinen Tax Assessment Services was contracted by the town to do a revaluation over four years at a cost of $80,000 per year and total cost of $320,000.

The town’s last revaluation was completed in 1990.

On Thursday, Town Council Chairman Dillon Pesce said that the council recently discovered that Van Tuinen would miss the deadline for an update to the town-wide revaluation.

“Last week Mr. Van Tuinen came into the town manager’s office and said he wasn’t going to be done in time for our commitment on the tax rate in late August” for fiscal year 2016, Pesce said.

Pesce said Town Manager Diane Barnes told Van Tuinen he’d have to take the news before the town council, which would have to make the decision on where to go.

The council on Tuesday was “extremely dissatisfied with the news,” Pesce said.

“Van Tuinen said he was almost 100 percent done with residential values, but only about 35 percent of the way through commercial values,” Pesce said.

According to Pesce, when Van Tuinen was before the council several months ago, he assured councilors the revaluation would be done on time. He also said at that time he would start having hearings for people to come in and challenged new assessed values. But May came and that hadn’t happened. Pesce said he had several questions for the assessor Tuesday night.

“I also questioned why we were just finding out at the 12th hour, and when did he have an idea he was running behind schedule,” Pesce said.

It was at least four weeks prior, when Van Tuinen had a large abatement come in on a mill.

“ But, to me, that is no excuse to be done late. We had a contract,” Pesce added. Had Van Tuinen come to the council sooner, “we could have come to an agreement.”

With the $320,000 project slated to be done already, citizens are eagerly awaiting their new assessments, Pesce said — some of them on edge expecting their taxes to go up and others excited because they think their tax bills are going down. Citizens he’s talked to want their new assessed values this year.

The town council has not made a decision as to whether it is going to direct Van Tuinen to get the revaluation done before the tax commitment, though Pesce said he believes it can’t be done as it would only give residents a few weeks to come in and abate property, and he believes the majority of councilors agree. Van Tuinen said another option is to push back the tax commitment, but Pesce said this can trigger a problem with cash flow depending on how far back it is pushed. The town could also keep the current values for another year.

Ultimately the council is awaiting feed back on the matter from its legal counsel on how to proceed and wants all the facts and options on the table before making a decision, Pesce said.

“ I did ask Mr. Van Tuinen what he was prepared to give back to citizens,” since he failed to meet the terms of his contract, and he seemed willing to work with the town, Pesce said, “ so that is a plus.”

Pesce also noted the town owes Van Tuinen $ 30,000 out of the final $80,000 annual bill for the most recent fiscal year ending June 30, which will be carried over to the current fiscal year. That final $30,000 has not been paid yet because Van Tuinen is not done and Pesce said that, as a councilor, he would not vote for paying Van Tuinen anything beyond that — which is a concern some residents have.

According to Pesce, the town council will take up the matter of the revaluation again at its July 21 meeting as the council will need to give direction to staff soon on what to do with the tax commitment. It is scheduled to take place in the second half of August.

“ We have to make that decision pretty soon,” Pesce said.

Efforts to reach Van Tuinen on Friday and Monday were unsuccessful.

dmoore@timesrecord.com