Editorial: Cautious optimism on property tax tool

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It’s been about seven years since the botched property assessment scandal pretty much shelved the development and slow roll-out of a new, high-tech property tax assessment system. It was intended to make the entire process more efficient. Service New Brunswick is now trying again over the next three years. It deserves a fair shake.

We needn’t rehash the old scandal. The then-auditor general urged Service New Brunswick to undertake a “lessons-learned analysis” and incorporate those lessons before proceeding again with a computer-assisted mass appraisal system.

Regaining public confidence is crucial. It’s easy to be cynical in light of the past, but not necessarily wise.

Computers enhance efficiency when used well. And with population growth it’s not possible to have a human assess every property annually without huge budget increases. We need the technology, but we must also use it wisely.

The guiding principle is clear: to fairly approximate annually how much a property would sell for if it were put on the market.

This involves more than just whether significant improvements were made to a property. It’s also legitimate for assessment increases to reflect when real property values in a neighbourhood rise as a result of recent sales. This boosts the value of houses nearby, even if no work was done.

You don’t need a human assessor for that. But you might need one in a mixed or evolving neighbourhood in which important factors may differ dramatically between some houses.

When a computer, assisted or not by a drone or other devices, claims an upgrade has increased value, it needs to be carefully checked and validated by humans, and appeals allowed, especially if an increase is large. The new system is promising that, a good sign.