The system is designed to allocate the tax burden fairly. Everyone pays based on the value of his or her property, not on income. The Assessments are done independently of the budget making process. Once the assessments are completed, the Mayor and Assembly set a mill rate that will allow them to meet the budget. There is no collusion with assembly or Mayor to raise assessments to meet budget needs.
Assessed property includes homes, personal and business property.
Value as of Jan 1st. They have been doing a lot of visits in the Hillside area recently. Sales info feeds into their multiple regression model which estimates the incremental increase in market value of 40 features of a home. For any particular home, the model uses as input data only sales of homes that have similar features and are in the same general neighborhood. One could be skeptical of a model that estimates the value of 40 features with a sample of maybe a dozen or less homes as input data.