LEWISTON — After a majority of property owners declined to allow interior home inspections, the city is changing its strategy in order to complete a full revaluation in 2026.

According to City Assessor William Healey, the city decided to shift from property inspections to data mailers in late December, meaning property owners will now be asked via mail to verify information about their property in order for the city and its consultant to complete property assessments.

The city has not conducted a full revaluation since 1988 and, earlier this year, hired Tyler Technologies to complete the revaluation for $574,000.

The effort is still in the information gathering phase, but has been stymied by a very low response to interior inspections.

“The mailers were not part of the original plan,” Healey said, adding that “people didn’t feel comfortable allowing interior inspections of their home.”

Healey said the mailers, which were sent out the week before the holidays, contain information about the property, and the city is “asking property owners to confirm that the information we have on file is correct.”

If residents ultimately don’t respond to the mailers, their assessments will be based on similar dwellings in similar locations, he said.

The city expects to have preliminary values early in 2026. Then, informal value review meetings will be conducted by Tyler Technologies between April and May of 2026. According to the city’s revaluation website, if a property owner is not satisfied with the results of the review, a formal appeal may be filed with the Assessor’s Office.

City staff and officials for several years have called for the overdue revaluation due to the city’s high property tax rate and the recent real estate market that has widened the gap between sale prices and assessed values.

For fiscal year 2024, Lewiston’s certified ratio was 73%, which means that on average, the city is assessing properties at 73% of their full value as assessed by the state.

In recent years, officials have argued that the resulting impact to the property tax rate, which is now more than $30 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, is a deterrent to economic development.

When the revaluation is complete, the large jump in valuation will likely cause the tax rate to decrease significantly. Healey has said that if the tax rate decreases at the same percentage as the valuation increase, property taxes will remain nearly the same. But, large swings in valuation would cause property owners to see higher taxes.

During a recent presentation to the City Council regarding a potential tax increment financing district for the NECEC converter station, city staff estimated a “post-revaluation adjusted” property tax rate of $16.84.

The converter station project, now valued at $186.5 million, is expected to grow in value to $340 million by tax year 2026.

Healey said if residents prefer calling or emailing in response to the data mailers, they can call 207-513-3122 or email: [email protected]