Abatements filed by residents need to be filed between November 15, 2020, to March 1, 2021. The office practice on filing abatements has always been first in, first served. Well, now the assessing department is only doing properties that they like.
This year 87 residential abatements were filed, and as of today, only 34 have been done (7 ½ months). Of the 34, fifteen were done on Pasture Ln, and five were done on Caleb St. The balance of fourteen properties was done throughout Nashua.
However, our assessors did not do the abatements that came in November and December 2020. Why not?
Residents need to remember that if our assessing department does not act on an abatement by July 1, 2021, it is deemed denied. If our assessors have only done 34 abatements since November 2020, how many of the balance of 54 will be deemed denied?
If deemed denied, the taxpayer has to pay more money for a lawyer and other court fees to fight to get a fair assessment of their property because our assessing department is willfully ignoring these abatements.
Residents need to remember that Vision is currently doing all of the routine work that our assessors usually do – Sales valuation, building permits, etc., and the Nashua taxpayer is paying their bill. So why are our assessors unable to do all the abatements filed by property owners?
Taxpayers fund the assessing office at about 1 million dollars a year.
Last night the Finance Committee committed to spending another $150,000 of taxpayers’ money to get a Tax Abatement Appraisal Consulting Firm in to help with abatements on commercial properties. The kicker there is that the City of Nashua will not be charging the assessing department expense account but will be charging an asset account.
The City of Nashua is hoping that the Nashua taxpayers will not realize that this money is being spent. No transparency here.
Another kicker is that our assessing department has given Greg Turgiss the next two weeks off for vacation. A normal business would not allow an employee to take a vacation during a critical time-sensitive period. However, because our city does not care for the resident, the city let him. He has completed zero abatements for the 2021 abatement season. Anyone stuck with him is in a no-win situation.
Taxpayers are funding an office with miserable performance. Let your Ward Aldermen know that this is unacceptable.
