According to the agreement approved by the town and village boards last week, the new assessed values will be done in time for the village tax bills, which are mailed to property owners in June.

Otsego Town Supervisor Tom Breiten said his two biggest concerns about the town’s and village’s revals were getting them done on time and having the valuations jibe.

``It would be mutually beneficial to both our municipalities to work together more closely so as to have one uniform and internally consistent assessment roll that has, as its basis, a common method and procedure of valuation,’’ he said.

Trustee Jeff Katz, who chairs the planning committee and is overseeing the reval, said the agreement made a lot of sense for the village and the town.

``It is,’’ he said, ``an excellent example of regional cooperation. We realized there was some duplication of effort and asked why should we both be doing the same things.’’

Katz said Village Assessor Al Keck has done an excellent job with the data collection and the committee had been in conversations with Maxwell earlier about assisting with the completion of the village reval.

``We were confident it would be done on time,’’ Katz said. ``The biggest benefit for the village is that both tax rolls would be consistent.’’

Originally, the town was planning to purchase the completed valuation figures and assessment data from the village for a total of slightly less than $10,000. Under the new agreement, the town will pay Maxwell Appraisal Service $24,000 to complete the property values using data collected by Keck.

Keck is to have all data collection completed by Oct. 5. Less than a week later, village property owners will be mailed a copy of the assessment data for their property and be asked to check it for accuracy. Owners will have until Oct. 31 to return the data mailers.

Keck and Maxwell will make adjustments to computer files to correct information as needed before beginning the valuation process, which is scheduled to be completed by Dec. 15.

Impact notices with new assessed values will be sent to property owners by the end of the year. Property owners will have the opportunity to request an informal hearing with the village assessor’s office to discuss their new assessment and present reasons why an adjustment should be made.

The village tentative roll is scheduled to be filed by Feb. 1 with the Otsego County Office of Real Property Tax Services.

Any property owners who believe their new assessment is still incorrect may file a formal grievance during the annual Grievance Day on Feb. 19.

The final village tax roll will be filed April 1.

Katz said he questions whether it makes sense for the village to be a separate assessing unit. The state is pushing to centralize assessing and the village does not gain a lot by maintaining its own tax roll. The village roll, he explained, is used only for village taxes. The town roll is used in the computation of school, town and county tax bills.

When completed, property assessments should be a more accurate reflection of market values.

In the almost two decades since the last village reval, assessed values have not kept pace with escalating property values.

A general rule of thumb is that in a reval, one-third of the properties see an increase in assessed value, one-third decrease and one-third remain the same.

Some people may be surprised by the increase in their assessed value, Katz said, but they have to remember that the increase in total assessed value will bring down the tax rate at the same time.