Some Meredith residents will receive new tax bills due to assessment error

MEREDITH — The selectboard addressed an error in some tax bills at their meeting last week. Town Manager Judie Milner said the calculation was about $800,000 too low in assessed value, equating to $8,400 less in taxes billed to property owners.

While this won’t affect all taxpayers, some will see updated tax bills coming in the mail.

“We’re not exactly sure what caused that yet,” Milner said. “I did ask Director [Robert] Carpenter to guide the offices through what caused it, and how they can reconcile it through next time in a better way, so we can catch these things.”

Milner said if the difference is under $5 it can be waived, but any more than that will result in taxpayers receiving a corrected bill and a letter. While it is unclear how many tax bills this affected, or how many people are getting a corrected bill, town leaders are working on getting this straightened out.

“If you are getting a corrected bill, you can expect it in the next week or so,” Milner said during the Dec. 22 meeting. “Maybe with a holiday, a week and a half.”

In November, the selectboard voted to use the town’s “rainy day fund” to lower the proposed tax rate, putting it at $10.62 per thousand, which is a 3.51% increase over last year. Using $709,150 from the fund balance reduced the municipal portion by $0.18 from the original rate.

Without using the fund balance, there would have been an increase of $0.54, or 5.2%, over last year. Town leaders only have control over the municipal portion of the tax rate.

The tax rate included the municipal tax rate of $3.44 (originally $3.62 without the fund balance usage), county tax rate of $1.03, local education rate of $4.95, and state education of $1.20, for a total rate of $10.80.

According to information signed off on by Deputy Director of Municipal and Property Division Adam Denoncour of the state Department of Revenue Administration, the total assessment valuation with utilities this year was $3.9 billion, and without utilities about $400,000 less. Last year’s assessment valuations were only slightly lower, at $3.9 billion, with about a $600,000 difference without utilities, amounting to less than 1% increases in 2025.