Waterford Listers Report
The town wide statistical reappraisal was completed this year. The results were the average home with less than 6 acres of land assessment went up 66%. Those homes with greater than 6 acres assessment increased on average by 62%. Land values went up on average 32%.
As expected, we received a letter stating that we were now required to do a full reappraisal due to our COD numbers. As a result of increased property values across the state, 131 towns (50%) have been flagged for reappraisal. Since the town had done a reappraisal in 2021, we met the requirements for doing a statistical reappraisal, a much less expensive option than hiring an outside company therefore saving the town a significant amount of money and time.
The State of Vermont is now overseeing the appraisal of all transmission and distribution power systems. Although some towns benefited from this, Waterford did not, as the difference in last year’s appraisals and the state’s numbers were minus $4,658,700 costing the town approximately $17,800 in tax revenue.
We negotiated an agreement with Great River Hydro through 2027. This saved the town thousands of dollars in legal fees and assures consistent revenue over the next 3 years.
The total number of property transfers and subdivisions for last year was 46 from 4/1/2024 to 3/31/2025. This year we are at 59 as of 12/31/2025. Even after reappraisal, many of the sales continue to be over appraised value.
CLA (Common Level of Appraisal) – 100.79% up from 84.39%
CLA is percentage of Fair Market Value vs Assessed value based on 3 years of sales.
COD (Coefficient of Dispersion) – 15.00% down from 17.29%
COD is the percentage of difference of similar valued properties based on 3 years of sales.
We continue to use two software programs to maintain the grand list as issues continue and the decision to migrate to the new software is being done pieces at a time.
This winter we hope to spend time on improving the accuracy of the tax map.
We are now working on the list of discrepancies in acreage between the grand list and the map
which will require our tax map company (CAI Technologies) to process many of the older surveys.
The minimum educational requirements for listers and assessors (part of Act 68 of 2023 passed by the legislature) was released. Every lister (regardless of years of experience) will be required to take 48 hours of education this year to obtain a Vermont Property Assessor Level 1. Assessors must complete all of VPA Level one classes and an additional 3 IAAO classes plus the Vermont Data Collection class. Newly elected listers will have one year to complete the classes.
If you have any questions, please call us at 748-2122 Ext 19, we are in the office Tuesdays from 9 to 3.
