What happens when a town can’t find enough volunteers to fill a board? Such is the case with Harvard’s Board of Assessors, and at this year’s Annual Town Meeting, the Board of Selectmen will ask voters to terminate the board and replace it with a “suitable individual or company” with no requirement for Harvard residency. Meanwhile, the board is left with only one member, and there is business that must be conducted by a May 1 deadline, leaving the selectmen scrambling to find someone to step up in the next few weeks.
The town’s appointed Board of Assessors is supposed to have three members, but it’s been operating with only two members for more than a year. Peter Warren, who was appointed to the board in March 2016, had to leave the board earlier this month, but not because he wanted to. The Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) requires that all town assessors take and pass a weeklong class given in a few locations in the state three times a year. From the time of an assessor’s appointment, he or she has two years to pass the class, and for Warren those two years were up on March 1 this year.
Warren said that when the selectmen asked him to be on the board, he told them he wasn’t willing to spend a week away from home to take the required course. He said he had heard talk of putting the course online, and he was hoping that would materialize, adding that he would gladly have taken it online. But that hasn’t happened yet, leaving Warren no choice but to leave the board.
Help wanted
Without a quorum, the board cannot conduct its business, but there is business to conduct: the town’s 2018 property value abatement requests must be heard and voted on by May 1. The sole remaining board member, Rick Maiore, said he was hoping the selectmen would appoint someone to the board at their March 20 meeting, but that didn’t happen. And on Wednesday this week, Board of Selectmen Chairwoman Lucy Wallace told the Press that she is not aware of any appointment to the Board of Assessors that is being considered before Annual Town Meeting, which is after the May 1 deadline.
Maiore said he took the required course about 10 years ago when he was serving a six-year stint on the board. At that time, he said, the board had more responsibility, but now everything is codified by the DOR, making the job more perfunctory. Maiore said the board’s primary duties are to sign off on the tax rate, review requests for “chapter land” (land that is taxed for agricultural, forestry, or recreational use), and participate in the abatement process.
Both Maiore and Warren said that the course requirement is a huge barrier to finding residents willing to serve on the board. Town Administrator Tim Bragan agreed and said he contacted the DOR last year and questioned the need for the class. “It’s archaic,” he told the Press. “It’s all done with professionals and software now.” Bragan said the DOR never responded, and he believes his challenge of the course requirement was a factor in the DOR’s closer scrutiny of the town’s tax approval process this year.
A board no more?
Article 41 in this year’s Annual Town Meeting warrant would allow the town to hire someone who is not a resident to act as the town’s assessor and to eliminate the Board of Assessors entirely. Leominster-based Regional Resource Group is under contract to do the yearly assessment of Harvard properties, and Bragan believes that either an employee of that company or the company as a whole could be named as the town’s assessor. The town position of assistant assessor, currently filled by Kelly Szocik, would not be affected by the passage of the article.
The only downside that Bragan said he could see with a nonresident assessor is that he or she might not be as sympathetic to abatement requests as an all-resident board. Maiore and Warren both said that given the situation the board is in, they’re in favor of the article. Warren added that he’d like to see the three-person board continue, but he doesn’t see how it can unless the state eliminates the course requirement or puts the course online. “It makes it impossible for volunteers,” Warren said.
