HANOVER — The town, which saw a record number of residents appeal their property tax bills last year, has hired a new tax assessor. One of his first duties will be to review the 2018 statistical update that triggered criticism of the town’s revaluation of property assessments.
Normand Bernaiche, a veteran assessor in the Upper Valley who has been the tri-town assessor in Sunapee, Newbury, N.H., and New London as well as assessor in Enfield, Lebanon, Claremont and Grantham, begins work Monday, succeeding Dave McMullen, who resigned in January to become assessor in Conway, N.H.
Bernaiche, 57, will oversee a review of Hanover’s quinquennial statistical revaluation that was undertaken in 2018. That process resulted in protests from some property owners who were incredulous over the new assessments and dramatically higher tax bills. The town’s board of assessors was inundated with more than 400 appeals for rebates, and 65 property owners filed a petition with the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals to compel the town to redo the revaluation.
Dartmouth College, the largest property owner in town, filed an appeal in Grafton Superior Court seeking a tax refund of up to $576,000 on 38 properties it owns.
Initially, the town planned to hire an outside, third-party adviser to review the revaluation, which was conducted by taking recent property sales data, running it through a computer model and applying a formula to town-wide property owners. New Hampshire towns are required every five years to conduct a statistical update and every 10 years to undertake a reassessment of values based on site visits to properties.
Town Manager Julia Griffin said that the town, instead of hiring an outside consultant, decided that “given Norm’s extensive experience, he will be doing (the) in-house review.”
For the review of the statistical revaluation, Bernaiche said that he’s “going to be looking at the quality of the data and the consistency of the model to see how it was applied to non-sale homes” to find out if “the fiscal analysis is sound and accurate enough or if it isn’t.”
The outcome of the review will determine the next step of whether the town will hire a professional municipal appraising firm to undertake a “full measure and list appraisal and revaluation” for the decennial assessment. Town officials have said hiring a firm for the project could cost from $175,000 to $350,000.
“Before we spend that kind of money, we want to make sure we have to,” Bernaiche said.
Bernaiche said he knows taking over Hanover’s assessor’s office comes in the wake of a revaluation that caused considerable animosity between town officials and residents.
“I have a job to do, which is to restore the public trust, and that’s going to be through transparency and through accurate valuation techniques,” Bernaiche said. “I’m really strong on educating taxpayers and citizens. That’s really half the job.”
Property owners often said last year that the town communicated poorly during the 2018 revaluation process.
Bernaiche, who lives in Acworth, N.H., will be paid $128,000 annually. His predecessor was paid about $110,000 annually.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
