“Some of the properties here have gone up between $85,000 and $100,000,” said an upset Tim Switaj, a commercial and residential property owner in Busti. “I have a machine shop, auto sales lot, and trailer park, which was evaluated at $185,000 in 2019, and under the new assessment, the property is now (allegedly) valued at $250,000 – and I’m not the only one in this boat.”

According to Switja, he also owns a residential property within the town limits that he bought 20 years ago for $20,000. However, he said that when he attempted to sell the property now, it was assessed for $145,000, and his real estate listing agents said the property wouldn’t fetch more than $90,000.

“The last time Busti had a residential and private property assessment was in 2014, and the last time we did a commercial property assessment was in 2009,” said Darlene H. Nygren, Busti town clerk. “We’ve been due for a while to have the assessments updated.”

Nygren said a letter was sent to all the property owners, explaining in detail the steps to take to challenge a property’s assessment.

From left, Lakewood Village Trustee Ben Troche, Mayor Randy Holcomb, Trustee Ellen Barnes, and Trustee Nancy Jones discuss business on March 24, at a village board meeting. P-J photo by Michael Zabrodsky

Property owners can submit information for review by the town assessor. That information has to be mailed to Assessor’s Office, 125 Chautauqua Ave., Lakewood, NY, 14750, and postmarked no later than April 15. Busti residents can also attend the Busti Assessment Grievance Day from 4 to 8 p.m. May 29 at the town offices at 125 Chautauqua Ave., Lakewood.

As previously reported in a March 27 Post-Journal story, property reassessment typically results in about a third of property values increasing, about a third staying the same and about a third decreasing – though the municipality’s total taxable assessment typically increases. The taxable assessment change means tax rates will change for residents depending on what happened to their property assessment, but the tax levy (the amount the municipality raises through taxes) stays the same until the next budget is passed.

Lakewood Mayor Randy Holcomb, at a March 24th village board meeting, gave an update to help dispel any confusion about the village’s portion of the new assessment. The town of Busti, Holcomb noted, had been on regular three-year reassessments, but the current one is the first full town reassessment since 2014.

“This is a town of Busti property revaluation,” Holcomb said. “The town provides the property values for the village, town, school and county taxes. Please note that the past reassessment notices all had projected taxes for the town tax, village tax, school tax and county tax. This revaluation had the projected tax for only the town tax, which is the smallest tax we all pay.”

Had the newest assessment impact notices sent to taxpayers included taxes for the Southwestern Central School District, village of Lakewood and Chautauqua County, Holcomb said, it would have shown that the village tax rate would have dropped from currently $8.17 to $4.33 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

“Likewise, the most recent Southwestern (Central) School tax rate was $22.49 before this revaluation. With the new tentative assessments, the school tax rate would have been $10.82,” Holcomb said.