Submitted by R. Bruce Murphy
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court produced a watershed decision date dated December 6, 1973 – a little more than 40 years ago. In that decision entitled TOWN OF SUDBURY vs. COMMISSIONER OF CORPORATIONS AND TAXATION, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court redefined the role of the Commonwealth in local assessment by directing the Commissioners of Taxation to execute the law rather than serve solely in an advisory role to local boards of assessors.
The issue at hand was that there was no consistency within communities and across communities in the way that property values were assessed. In fact, the Supreme Court found – and I quote the decision here –“illegal assessments have long been the rule rather than the exception throughout much of the Commonwealth”.
That was forty years ago. In the intervening forty years the Department of Revenue has embraced the directive from the Supreme Court and has developed regulations, standards and procedures to drive consistency in the assessment process within and across communities.
It has become the role of the local assessor to learn and apply that regulatory framework while striving for the goal of property values that are consistent with a full, fair cash value. That, in essence, is what I have been doing for the last five years, doing my best to achieve that goal as we set property values and process abatement requests each year. I would like to think that during my tenure on the Board I have also contributed my fair share to our accomplishments and carried my fair share of the burden in dealing with our challenges. We have implemented a new mass appraisal system in the office and have worked through the teething period that comes with every new system. I lead studies on the way we assess impact of busy streets and the flood plain on the values of homes to make sure our practices were driving accurate assessments. I also lead the study that supported the implementation an exemption for low value Personal Property accounts. As a member of the Fiscal Planning and Coordinating Committee, I worked with my colleagues from other Boards and Committees to develop the Town’s approach to the Unfunded Pension Liability. The last few years have been eventful. We have managed through staff and Board turnover. And, of course, we, like our colleagues in every other town, weathered the buffeting that came with the economic winds of the recent great recession.
I am proud of my role on the Board over the last five years. It has been a growth experience for me. I find the work of the Board challenging and interesting and it satisfies my need to give back to the community in a way that I think I am particularly suited to do. It is a job that requires a wonk – at my core I am a hopeless wonk.
I would like the opportunity to keep contributing to the Town of Bedford as a member of the Board of Assessors. If you vote for me in the coming election and return me to the Board I promise I will strive to live up to my oath of office that I will “truly and impartially, according to my best skill and judgment, assess and apportion all such taxes as I may assess during my time in office and that I will neither overvalue nor undervalue any property subject to taxation.”
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