So, you received your revaluation notice and you’re both delighted your house is worth so much, but wondering what it’s going to mean for taxes and whether you should question the number. The tax rate is driven by the city budget and total valuation of taxable properties.

City Tax Assessor Kenneth Mallette offered some advice Monday afternoon.

“Just look at (your) neighborhood and make sure (you’re)  in line with rest of neighborhood and proceed from there,” he said. The assessor’s office and Vision Appraisal, which was contracted to perform the full revaluation (every property is looked at) for $1.4 million, have provided a tool to make comparisons easy. Mallette said there is a “sales” book showing street by street property sales since the statistical revaluation three years ago.

Should property owners put off challenging valuations for fear the value could be hiked even higher? In all his years doing revaluations, Mallette said that may have happened a dozen times.  He urged property owners to make their argument that the valuation is too high.

He notes property owners have until April 11 to schedule an in-person or telephone appointment to present evidence that the new value is faulty.  If after review and any adjustment, or no adjustment to the value, the property owner has 90 days after issuance of the tax bills in June or July to file for a formal appeal.

The revaluation dished up two surprises for Mallette.

With interest rates skyrocketing over the past three years, he figured the housing market would cool off.  He paid special attention to the final months of 2023, as the revaluation is based on values as of Dec. 31, 2023. Values didn’t drop as there was a low inventory of houses for sale and lots of buyers.

Mallette was not surprised to find commercial, retail and industrial values lagging behind residential. The surprise was the value of apartments that shot up with the demand for housing.

“We looked at every single property,” said Mallette. That’s a total of 33,300 parcels including residential, commercial, tax exempt properties such as churches and schools. Collectively the value is $13.9 billion. He cautioned that is not the total for taxable property, which will be less once the tax exempt properties are removed.

Facilitating the revaluation and eliminating the need to visit every property, “a data mailer” was sent to every property where there was a structure. The mailer spelled out what was on the property, giving the owner the chance to amend it. In addition, Mallette estimated the internal work done by the assessor’s office on sales and building permits saved the city about $200,000.

And how many revaluations has Mallette overseen?

“Far too many,” he said.

Mallette has served as Cranston’s Assessor for about a year and a half. His longest stretch as assessor was with Warwick. From there he went to Cumberland and then to Barrington where he had to pull off a revaluation in a matter of a few months. Mallette is not saying when he might retire. He notes that his home is a short drive from Cranston City Hall and he enjoys work.