On Wednesday the LWV Greenwich hosted a talk with Board of Estimate and Taxation chair David Weisbrod and the Town Assessor, Lauren Elliott. Moderators were Janet Stone McGuigan and Kris Lowe.
Mr. Weisbrod explained that the BET creates the Town’s budget and capital items, and sets the town’s property tax rate – the “mill rate” – which is applied to the grand list to determine the aggregate property taxes paid by residents.
The BET appoints the Assessor, but Weisbrod clarified that while the Assessor, Ms Elliott, reports to the BET, her work is independent.
“We have no role in second guessing or challengingn the individual valuations,” Weisbrod said.
State law requires properties be revalued once every five years.
Ms Elliott said, “The real estate market changes. The market moves, and we want to make sure that the valuations for individual homeowners are as current as we can make them. It’s not a revenue generator. We don’t do the revaluations to get more money. The goal is simply to distribute the tax burden fairly among all the residents in town.”
The most recent reval was current as of October 2025. The previous one was done in 2021, reflecting a one year delay due to Covid. The next reval will be done in five years – in October 2030.
Ms Elliott explained that her office is responsible for assessing all real estate, motor vehicles and personal property (of businesses).
Every year she creates a grand list, and every five years the town does the real estate reval.
In the Town of Greenwich, there are roughly 20,000 residential parcels and about 1,100 commercial parcels.
The majority of the grand list value – 82% – reflects residential parcels.
“If you add up all the list – real estate, motor vehicle and personal property – you have 100% value of $66 billion worth of property here in the Town of Greenwich,” Elliott said.
The town hires a revaluation company that is certified by the State Office of Policy and Management.
“In Connecticut everything is assessed at 70% of market value and the revaluation creates equity to values from property to property,” she explained.
Ms Elliott explained that her office is responsible for maintaining property record cards updated based on building permits, additions or subtractions.
They also arrange inspections, and are required by law to inspect every property once every 10 years.
“We could do it all at once, but the last time we did it, in 2001, it cost the town millions of dollars to do it, so we spread the inspection requirement over the ten years,” she said. “We do about 2,000 to 3,000 parcels a year where we knock on the door, walk around. …We measure the outside, and, if possible get into the interior and collect all the pertinent data that the property cards require.”
The reval company takes the assessor’s data and come up with the fair market values of all the properties in town.
There were questions from the Zoom audience focused on the mechanics of the revaluations, including one about use of drones.
“An inspection is to walk around and physically measure the property,” Elliott said. “We don’t use drones.”
Key factors in determining the value of a property include size of the lot, square footage of the house, and for example, size of pools and garages. And in the interior, they factor in the quality of construction, and for example, the number of bathrooms and fireplaces.
These are the data the Assessor’s office turns over to the revaluation companies for the Oct 1 assessment date.
Mr. Weisbrod said in FY 27, $468 million of the town’s $542 million budget (after subtracting things like money from state and federal aid, transfers from other funds, conveyance taxes, tipping fees, etc) is funded by the property tax.
“When you divide the grand list by the amount needed to fund the $468 million, you come up with the mill rate which (the BET) voted on on Monday. The new mill rate is 10.125.”
“Also people who live in sewer districts have their own additional mill rates to pay for sewer maintenance and sewer improvements,” he added.
Weisbrod said while the average residential home increased by 28.5% by the assessment, the entire grand list, on average, increased by 25.3%, including motor vehicles, business personal property (office equipment, tables, desks, furniture), and other items.
By way of example, Weisbrod said a home valued at $1 million pre-reval, under the old mill rate of 12.041, resulted in a property tax of $12,041.
“Now, if you apply the 25.36% increase in the average grand list to the $1 million home, that home would be worth $1,250,000. When you apply the new mill rate to that new valuation, you come up with a new property tax of $12,686, which is an increase of 5.4%”
Mr. Weisbrod said there was a misconception that if someones property had a 25% increase in value, that would result in a 25% increase in property tax.
“No, no, no, that is not the case,” he said.
Ms Elliott said the most recent reval reflected the impact of Covid on real estate values, with the most significant increases impacting residential real estate.
Weisbrod said Districts 1, 2 and 8 increased at faster rates, with District 1 increasing 37.7%, District 2 increasing 30.6% and District 8 increasing 30.7%
Ms Elliott said after she signed the grand list in January, the Board of Assessment Appeals accepted appeals during a window from Feb 1 to Feb 20.
From there, the board held residential hearings in the month of March. For those who were not satisfied with the result of their hearing, they are allowed to appeal to Superior Court.
Ms Elliot said there were a bout 950 appeals to the Board of Assessment Appeals (whose members are elected) out of 20,000 parcels.
The Assessor said there are some tax relief programs, including one for elderly. The application period is Feb 1 to May 15. Seniors on a limited income below $80,000 are allowed to seek the benefit.
There are also exemptions for veterans.
Another question was about the impact on the grand list based on many private school parcels being tax exempt.
“Over the last few years, you’ve lost some significant parcels of land, so yes, it does have an impact,” Elliott said.
“The Town of Greenwich has one of the lowest effective tax rates in the state,” Elliott said, adding that there is “still some froth in the market.”
“There is a lot of paying ‘over-ask,’ and that is harder to deal with, when a real estate market is moving as quickly as it is,” she said. “Sale price matters…the most indicative of value is what it sells for…And the last couple years, we’ve a lot of sales and a fair amount of appreciation since the 2021 grand list.”
Toward the end of the forum, Mr. Weisbrod said, “To the extent that we have an increase in the grand list, it is a very good thing. And (the reval) is an attempt to create fairness and equity as best as we can do it.”