While neither ORPS nor the assessment community has direct control over the Real Property Tax Law, participants consistently called for both major and minor changes in the tax law to assist with their function, including a local mandate and synchronizing the state’s different assessment calendars.

Mandate reassessment. Agreeing with the need for improved equity, participants consistently stated that a state mandate requiring municipalities to periodically reassess their tax rolls would be the only way to achieve equity. Agreeing on the specifics of this mandate is where the issue becomes clouded. Requiring a periodic reassessment was referred to by most of the participants as a “cycle bill.” A cycle bill however, means different things to different people. Cycle legislation in one instance translated to a request for legislation to mandate reassessment, in other instances it was more specific, to mean mandating that a reassessment be done once within a six-year cycle with periodic updates in between. Others meant conducting the reassessment at a specific point within the cycle for each property without periodic updates. And in other instances it meant doing a reassessment within the cycle period for parts of the assessment roll.

Establish one statewide real property tax calendar. Participants cited that differences in tax calendars between neighboring municipalities or towns that share a school district “play havoc” with their assessment responsibilities. Participants offered as a solution a consistent statewide tax calendar that would require assessors to work on their rolls at the same time.