The Board of Assessors approved minutes and motor vehicle abatements, reviewed the annual boat excise commitment, and approved the second round of personal tax exemptions. The Board also received an update on the fiscal year 2027 valuation metrics before entering executive session.
[Jared Yagjian]: Order of business meeting to order at 4.15. All right, present today, myself, John Wilkes, and Steve Pompeo, and who else is present, Senator Jeremy Correra, all present in person. First order of business is review of the minutes from the August 12th meeting. I have reviewed them.
[Steven Pompeo]: Then I reviewed them. I reviewed everything in email, so I'll make a motion to accept those.
[Jared Yagjian]: And then also in that email was the motor vehicle review of abatements. They're here as well. Yeah, I checked all of those. OK.
[Steven Pompeo]: I'm OK. I'm a commissioner. So here's this one. Could be decent.
[Jared Yagjian]: All right, and then our once a year third item is the boat excise commitment. So this will be for our two marinas that we have. One on Rombolich and then on Beresides. I think we didn't have the book. We just got into this committee and we had to get it from the Department of this meeting. Let me get those out. And in the one-quarter business is the second round of personal exemptions. When Rita has a chance, she can run us through quickly all the exemptions that came through for round two.
[Steven Pompeo]: Whenever you're ready, Rita.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello. Good afternoon. Nice to see you, John. Thank you. So we have a paraplegic veteran. This person qualifies to receive no tax debt. He's a repeat applicant.
[Steven Pompeo]: He qualifies.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are two surviving spouses of service members who died as a direct result of their affidavits. They received no tax debt. These are veterans who are alive and have a 100% service-connected disability rating. They receive $2,000 off their taxes every year. These are veterans who have the same 100% disability rating, but they only live in one half of a two-family house, so they receive half of the exemption, which is $1,000 a year. Is there a separate one in three families? Um, yeah, we don't have any, but because the law says they have to receive a portion of the exemption that now there's a portion on what they live in at the home. Yes. Good question. Um, this is, uh, first time we've ever had this in this office and there actually is a state rules made for it. It's a new one. For a veteran who's also got the 100% service-connected disability rating, they're alive, they live in the home, but their spouse is the name that's on the title of the home.
[Steven Pompeo]: Yeah, they're alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're allowed to do it. It's a new one that we've never had before. It's a law. I don't know if we call them laws or whatever under the DOI, right?
[Jared Yagjian]: Yeah, it's just a clause, so we never really... Or if we did, we never... Yeah, we never... We never decoded corrections as fully as a G.
[SPEAKER_00]: But nobody ever came into this office and said that was their situation. And so that's what it is, it's called 22G. Yeah, so you're right, it's clause 22G under the state law. So this is, in our chemist's, we never had a G, so this is our first official G. So he's a 100% exempted veteran, just like the others, but it's just that the house is in the name of his wife.
[Steven Pompeo]: Just to go back to, so the one in the two family, is the state law that requires the only get half?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the portion, They receive the portion of the exemption that equals a portion of the structure that they occupy.
[Steven Pompeo]: It's not about ownership, it's about occupancy.
[Jared Yagjian]: That will come up when we have more ADUs, that will be an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the person can own the whole two families, the owner of the two families, but because he only lives in one apartment, so he can only receive 50% of the exemption.
[Jared Yagjian]: So, for instance, someone who has a full exemption and built an ADU and then rent it, they wouldn't get the full 3%. Well, does the ADU count? It counts as a livable unit.
[Steven Pompeo]: So technically, something like that would be 3 of this. Right. And what if the ADU is less valuable than 50%? We'd have to track that, yeah. Because if they only get 50%,
[Jared Yagjian]: you know, by law, right, it's 900 square feet or 50%, so call it out as 1,800 square feet, then it would be truly 55th, no, no, you'd have 900, so it'd be a third of it. Yeah, exactly.
[Steven Pompeo]: But I think there's a lot in the state legislation to change that and allow the full exemption, because it doesn't seem right. So you've got all these veterans getting full exemptions, but the ones that happen to live in a two-family get half of the exemptions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to almost do it in a family, but you can only live in one apartment, right? Yeah. And so that because you can only live in one half of that two family.
[Steven Pompeo]: Yeah, they probably go if you live in a two family, you can only deduct as rent.
[Jared Yagjian]: You got one half of it. It's the on and off. Occupy the space of only one unit. If they occupy the whole two family, then fine. But they're renting out the other unit.
[Steven Pompeo]: I'm just advising that if you get an exemption, it's $2,000 in that case. and all veterans should get the two thousand whether they live in a four family or a single that would solve our problem trying to make it easier administrative right that's for sure yeah this kind of wasn't sorry i pulled this up more it's kind of wasn't renting you would get the police no no he's not renting he has to own no i'm saying like if he wasn't renting out the other unit yeah he'd use both units for himself he'd have to prove to us that he converted that two-family house into a one-family house so that he's using both
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd have to convert it. If they scale it to advantage.
[Jared Yagjian]: You'd need it somehow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, you wouldn't have to convert it.
[Jared Yagjian]: He could theoretically use both.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could use both for himself. But he'd have to prove to us that he's actually using both units as his living area.
[Steven Pompeo]: That makes a little more sense. I thought it was more blanket when you were considering.
[Jared Yagjian]: Yeah, it's supposed to be ways. He had a phone in our private space. What's the space?
[Steven Pompeo]: It's an actual tax exemption as opposed to like a value adjustment abatement which I could understand as a rental property that'd be important but you think they own something they should be entitled to. I mean it's only two thousand bucks you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they do own the house.
[Steven Pompeo]: Seriously yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like Jared said it's the letter of the law is you have to own and occupy. But how much of this place can you occupy if it's a two family? So this one is 22 little a which that's usually I call them it's $800 off because the veteran who's still alive has between a 10% and 90% service percent disability rating This one is the exact same thing as that one is it 90 it's a 10% to 90% service connected disability rating for the veteran and except that the spouse is the name on the title of the house. So they receive $800 off. This one is also, the spouse could be the name on the house because the veteran died, but not as a direct result of his act of doing so. She continues as the spouse with her name on the house, she continues to just get $800. Now we have completed the veterans. Now we have CPA exemption. These people applied to have their CPA surcharge exempted. That's the only thing they applied for with the city. Do we want to mention anything else?
[Jared Yagjian]: No, just in the data drives, we will color adjust those.
[SPEAKER_00]: This year, the veterans who receive the $2,000 100% service facility exemption, they're actually getting $2,113.57, because like Jared said, it builds upon itself. So last year, they bought 2,057 and change, because we had to add for the very first year, 2.9% of the COLA. This year, on top of that, we had to add 2.7% of the COLA, so it brings it to 2,113.57. And the people who are the 10%, which are the little a and the little b, you know, 22 little a and 22 little b. This year, they're receiving eight, last year they got 823.20, because we added the 2.9%. This year, on top of that, we added 2.7%, so we're getting $845.43 off this year. And like Gerard said, we'll continue every year, just this year's is gonna be next year's base. And that's only for the veterans at this time.
[Jared Yagjian]: That's fabulous, you must've entered those numbers many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. And we're working with, administration from what I understand they're very interested in seeing if we can apply or charities with them if we can apply and enter an increase of the exemption amount to other some other of these exemptions so that these are not always just going to be a frozen dollar amount maybe some cola amounts can be adjusted is it is that an option for cities yeah there is income and asset
[Jared Yagjian]: And can we adopt it for the others, or is it not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there are some. There are certain that are allowed. They're listed. It's specific. We'll tell you about it when it's time. But I'm just saying.
[Jared Yagjian]: So we can bring it up. So on fiscal 28, we can have a discussion and see if there's only about two or three more. And then we're completely maxed out on what the state allows us to do in terms of color adjustment. But I personally think it makes sense. I mean, just trying to keep up with the cost of living. The numbers, if they stay flat or static, just don't. Reflects what they used to reflect.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is people who qualify to receive incentives because they have a blindness certificate and they own an unqualified house. This is for people who are either seniors, not low income, or an any age surviving spouse. Who is the owner? These people are the owners and occupants and There's no income qualification maximum, but you can't have more than $40,000 assets, not counting house. So, a few people qualify for that. This is our, usually our biggest group. We have the seniors who are low income, and usually they have to go on, I don't have, you don't have a S41C cover sheet? I have to go and print one out then. Oh, that's it? Goodness, that's it. So this is the seniors who are low income, and they receive $1,000 off of their real estate tax from Fiscal Year 27. The last day of September.
[Steven Pompeo]: Is everything still paper filing? There's no electronic? Correct. Yeah.
[Jared Yagjian]: All right. Not currently. We're working on We've done these problems with getting rid of the paper in this office. This process is not currently online. Do they print them or do they have to request a form? They're online. You can get them online, but they're not fillable. And frankly, what we're seeing in real life, a lot of these people in seniors, they want paper. Yes. Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. I think every year we have about two or three families where the adult children are assisting the parents, and they do get it online. So even though we mail them the reminder, yellow one with the label, the children, in order to do it in a timely fashion, are able to just go online and get it. They have no problem whatsoever. They can get with us email, you know, email back. Is this one that I have a feeling we're going to have to talk about separately?
[Jared Yagjian]: Yes, definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that,
[Jared Yagjian]: kick that one over, so you have to stay before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one ends it for the exemptions for this board meeting, okay?
[Jared Yagjian]: That's great. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome.
[Jared Yagjian]: Thank you very much. Thanks so much, Rita, for that. Appreciate it. My pleasure. All right, so we just went through all the personal exemptions, all approved by signature. 27 valuation update. Myself and Jeremy have been working on the values. We're three months ready to submit to our approval. So we are, you know, market-wise, we have certainly not seen the increase that we saw during COVID in the last year or so, but we're moving roughly I'd say 3% for the single families. These are just averages for the entire set. The two families that came in strong, you know, we're about 6% for the two families, still seeing a lot of demand there for the multis. Condos, very light, almost flat, 1 to 2%. And then also the three families, pretty much similar to the two families around 6, 7%. we can then move to get our tax rates approved and should be able to get certified hopefully early this summer. Okay. And then lastly, we can just go into executive session to discuss some items. We'll call the executive session meeting starting 4.32.