Purpose & Facts

Town of Essex and City of Essex Junction
Municipal-wide Reappraisal of Real Property 2023-2025

The Town of Essex (“Town”) and City of Essex Junction (“City”) have begun the initial steps in starting a municipal-wide reappraisal of all real property. 

Every year, the State of Vermont Department of Taxes conducts an Equalization Study with every municipality. The Equalization Study’s purpose is to assess how close the grand list assessed values compare to 100% of Fair Market Value – which  is derived from the past three years property sales history. The Equalization Study relies upon two qualifying factors, the CLA and COD:

The Common Level of Appraisal (CLA) is a statistic that measures the general status of the valuations of property in a grand list. It is a measure of how close a municipality’s local assessments are to 100% of Fair Market Value. The CLA is used to equalize education taxes statewide with the goal of having properties of equal value pay equal amounts of school taxes. Vermont  municipalities must reappraise the properties in their town/city when the CLA ratio falls below 85% or rises above 115% (32 V.S.A §  4041(a)). A town’s/city’s CLA has no effect on the amount of property taxes owed on the town/city portion of a property tax bill. In Vermont law, it is “the ratio-of the aggregate value of local education property tax Grand List to the aggregate value of the equalized education property tax Grand List.” (32 V.S.A. § 5401(3)). In Essex, the current CLA is 78.35%, meaning that on average Essex properties are 21.65% lower than 100% or market value. Staying as close to 100% is the target and we want to stay as close to that as possible for as long as possible. As the market inevitably shifts, it becomes more important that we maintain equity than attempt to capture current Fair Market Value – hence the Coefficient of Dispersion measure as described by the following.

Equity between the valuation of property is tracked by the State of Vermont in a % statistic called the Coefficient of Dispersion (COD). The COD tells us the equity of the valuations for all property in the Town and City. A COD below 10% is considered good, but as the number approaches 20% it can trigger a mandatory reappraisal order from the State of Vermont.

For example, the COD figure could rise if properties at or below $300,000 are consistently selling for less than the grand list assessment and, conversely, properties above $600,000 are consistently selling for more than the grand list assessment. In this sequence a case can be made that properties assessed at $300,000 or less may be overvalued while properties assessed at $600,000 or more may be undervalued. This is just an example as the valuation threshold could encompass any home value. It should also not be assumed that all properties within these sections are subject to inequity issues with valuations. Again, this statistic is used to measure the disparity in equity of the Grand List based on recent valid sales data. Currently, the COD for Essex is 11.83%. 

FACTS:

CLA: 78.35%
COD: 11.83%
Educational Equalized Grand List 2021: $3,478,584,505
Last Municipal-wide reappraisal: 2007

Following is the Town of Essex and City of Essex Junction Educational Equalized Grand List  History since the last reappraisal: 

*2019 The State changed the minimum CLA threshold from 80% to 85%
**Combined CLA & CODs (no longer separated)