Add Bath to the long and growing list of Maine towns set to see property taxes head higher.
Residents of 8,800-person home of Bath Iron Works have just seen their property taxes increase substantially as a result of the city’s most recent round of revaluations.
According to the city’s website, this revaluation was based on data compiled between July 1, 2022, and July 1, 2023, and was conducted by Assessor Brenda Cummings and Assistant Assessor Jason Marshall.
Generally speaking, in order to stay in compliance with state law, municipalities undertake revaluations when assessed values fall below 70 percent of market values, whether this is due to the passage of time, the inflation of asset prices due to a weakening U.S. dollar, or a significant shift in demand in the housing market.
Tied to this ratio are the value of residents’ property tax exemptions — with the major one being the homestead exemption. The homestead exemption allows homeowners to pay a lower rate of tax on their primary residence if they’ve lived at that location for more than 12 months prior to April 1st of the tax filing year.
However, the amount of the exemption can vary according to how well a town’s assessed values track market values. For example, if a municipality’s property assessment is calculated to be at 80 percent of market value, homeowners are only eligible to take 80 percent — or $20,000 — of the state’s $25,000 homestead exemption.
Bath notes on its website that it completed a revaluation this year in the interest of maintaining a one hundred percent ratio between assessed and market values.
Since 2019, home prices in Maine have nearly doubled, according to data tracked by the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Those new sale prices contribute to the new valuations of houses that aren’t on the market, which means Mainers who have owned their homes for 20 years or more are suddenly on the hook for paying twice the property tax — even if their income has hardly grown.
[RELATED: Sticker Shock — Maine Homeowners Burdened by Property Tax Hikes Following Recent Revaluations]
According to a chart shared by the City of Bath on their website, the average value change percentage for all taxable property came in at 19.42 percent, with an average tax change percentage of 16.59 percent.
Primarily commercial properties, as well as apartment buildings with four or more units, saw the most dramatic increases as a result of this revaluation, with property taxes going up about twenty percent on average.
The value of residential properties increased an average of 19.36, resulting in an average 16.54 percent property tax increase.
Across the board, the tax percent change is less than the percent by which valuations increased because Bath’s mill rate — or the amount of tax charged per $1,000 of value — dropped this year from $16.90 to $16.50.
Bath Assessor Cummings told the Portland Press Herald that these increases have hit some seniors particularly hard due to their participation in the short-lived Property Tax Stabilization Program.
Last year, the City of Bath received about $2.7 million in reimbursements from the state for property tax exemptions, including those offered through the Stabilization Program.
This year, any seniors who participated in the program last year are now responsible for covering two year’s worth of increases, resulting in an even more dramatic hike for the 2025 fiscal year.
Bath resident Cheryl Young told the newspaper that she doesn’t understand why her property taxes have gone up.
“All I know is it just keeps going up, and I don’t know what we are going to do,” Young said.
She went on to explain that she purchased her house in March of 1998, paying roughly $1,100 in taxes each year. For the same house and garage on half an acre of land, she now pays $4,800 annually in property taxes.
“I can understand them going up over the years, but it just seems like the last few years, all of a sudden, it has jumped and jumped,” Young said.
Bath residents must pay their property taxes to the City by October 15.
[RELATED: South Portland Residents Passionately Address Property Tax Concerns at City Council Meeting]
Residents of South Portland were faced with similar troubles when they opened their property tax bills in August, discovering they were responsible for paying substantially higher property tax bills, with some seeing increases as high as sixty percent.
“My taxes went up almost 60 percent,” resident Millie Pelletier said during last week’s meeting. “I went in and asked for a reassessment. I’m a hundred percent disabled. I do not have a kitchen. My house has connecting bedrooms so it’s not technically a three-bedroom house, and the third bedroom has no closet.”
“The house has been in my family for a hundred years next month,” said Pelletier. “I took the house over. It needed a lot of work, hoping to save it. But now I’m afraid I’m the one who’s going to lose it.”
“They did say I had the record tax increase when I went into the assessor’s office,” Pelletier said, getting visibly choked up as she spoke.
Another resident — Donna Kane — said that she’s been a South Portland taxpayer since 1987 and has never seen anything like this.
“I’ve had property taxes increased in the past before,” Kane said, “but I was absolutely flabbergasted when I opened up my recent bill and it was 40 percent higher.”
“I talked to my neighbor who’s 90 years old. She was both outraged and said her bill was outrageous because it has doubled,” continued Kane. “And there’s something wrong. There has got to be something wrong.”
South Portland Mayor Misha Pride recently instructed elderly residents who are having a hard time paying their increasing property tax bills to consider taking out a reverse mortgage against the value of their home in order to satisfy the tax collector.
Mills doesn’t care! Go away and make room for the New Mainers.
The root cause is inflation. Inflation caused by the democrats, harris, golden, pengree and king. To the Bath residents who voted for these morons you got what you deserve. For everyone who didn’t, the free state of NH welcomes you.
My husband went into the Assessor’s office to ask about the new valuations in South Portland and when he said something about how bad the hikes are the woman behind the desk told him to move if he doesn’t like it. The woman who drives over an hour from a small out of town place with lower taxes who obviously is cold hearted and a jerk.
Well there are referendums on the Nov . ballot that will ALL COST MORE MONEY IF YOU VOTE YES.
Nothing is free . Even changing a perfectly good flag for some silly stupid little pine tree and star .
That alone will cost the state tens of thousands of dollars and IT WILL COST YOU if you don’t want the tree on your personal license plate .
We don’t need to spend any more than we already have .
The democrats have already saddled us with a billion dollar future shortfall .
VOTE NO on the November Bond Issues ……….ALL OF THEM
Vote the democrats out of office .
Save Maine . Save America .
Bath, Maine is predominantly liberal. They get what they voted for… always higher taxes!! No shock there! If they want to change things, vote MAGA=Lower Taxes! I don’t feel for them one bit.