Mar 10, 2015 NOTICE OF MOTION
Councillor Kaiser
WHEREAS general assessment seems a very flawed measurement of property values;
AND WHEREAS it is these values that are used as a base for taxation;
AND WHEREAS we have seen great dissatisfaction with taxation levels with regards to services rendered;
AND FURTHER I believe that there may be similar interest on this matter elsewhere in this province, but no obvious avenue to discover it;
THEREFORE, I move that Council
gives permission and enables Greater Napanee CAO
and/or CFO to interact with their counterparts across the province, or as they
might in the course of other activities, with the goal of inspiring more or,
possibly, all other municipal Councils, to begin a concerted lobby of
Provincial Government seeking change in the legislative requirement to use MPAC
assessment values, as they are, as the basis for taxation.
E-Mail Hubert Hogle to Max Kaiser Mar 12, 2015
In connection with your
motion concerning MPAC, you might want to look at these links on the
Ombudsman's website:
There have been numerous
complaints about MPAC which led to an investigation by the Ombudsman. A lengthy
report called Getting it Right found numerous
problems. MPAC promised to review it's procedures but I think the consensus is
that very little has changed. MPAC is funded by billing municipalities for its
services and the Mayor suggested jokingly when the last bill was paid that we
should look around for a new supplier. Of course, we have no choice but to use
MPAC.
I have appealed assessment
on one of my properties successfully several times and each time MPAC jacks it
back up the following year. It takes me about a day to prepare the comparison
sheet for each appeal. I know others who have had similar experiences. It's
very frustrating and often not worth the effort.
At the same time, there are
many owners who are under-assessed and, thus not paying their fair share.
The assessments are
generated by computer using data from market sales and a huge list of codes
setting out the variables for each property. The codes include:
SAN_MUN Municipal
Sanitary Services
SERCD_SA
Sanitary Service Type Code
SERCD_WA
Water Service Type Code
WTR_L_R
WTR_MUN
Municipal Water Service
WTR_NA
No Water Services Available
WTR_NO
No Water Service Potential to Connect/Install
WTR_SHW
Shared Well
WTR_WELL Private Well
See: MPAC list of site features
Sidewalks, Streetlights and
Transit (other than "Proximity to Mass Transit") do not appear on the list of codes.
The problem is that they do
not conduct site visits and much of their data is outdated or was never entered
correctly in the first place. Even after a successful appeal, they do not
appear to have a process to correct errors.
One problem seems to be
that they have very outdated details on individual properties, especially where
there has not been a recent sale. They no longer send assessors out to count
the number of toilets as they did years ago. I believe they still get data on
building permits that are issued. Another problem is that there is
no system for recognizing the state of repair of the property which often has
significant impact on the property sales data.
Their computer program is a
highly protected trade secret and they did not explain to the Ombudsman how it
worked. And they will not provide details, even to the
MPAC also generates the
preliminary list of electors, which after revision by the clerk (based only on
information in municipal records) become our voter's list. There were lots of
comments during the last election about how outdated our voters list was, but
it was not the clerk's fault. Three of my children were on the list as residing
in my home, although they have lived elsewhere for 20 years. Numerous ballots
arrived at apartment buildings for tenants who had not lived there in decades.
These were discarded in the recycling bins in the lobbies where they could have
been misused.
The Assessment Act requires
landlords of buildings with 7 units or more to send in tenant details by July
31 each year but landlords are not aware of this requirement. There are no such
provisions for updating tenant data on smaller buildings. MPAC used to
ask homeowners to review and return the list of occupants but they no longer do
this. I think these defects probably account for most of the errors on
the voters list. With electronic voting this becomes more important because of
the ease with which ballots could be misused.
Some improvements could be
made at little cost such as informing landlords of their duty to send in tenants lists. Others, such as sending assessors to do site
visits would be expensive. But, if public confidence in the system is lacking,
maybe this has to be done.
If your motion passes, and
I assume it will, you might consider asking the clerk to forward a copy to the
Ombudsman. A second investigation wouldn't hurt.
Hubert Hogle
613-532-3672
No reply was received to
this e-mail. On March 24, 2015, councillor Kaiser motion
was carried.