Dartmouth's new assessments pushed to one spring tax bill as revaluation starts late
The town asked the state for a year's delay and was turned down. A contract with the only bidder was signed last week, and the town administrator said an earlier consultant had no valid contract.
DARTMOUTH Dartmouth property owners will get another estimated tax bill this winter, and any change in what they owe from the town's revaluation will come due on a single bill in the spring, town officials told the Select Board on Monday, Oct. 26.
The state requires the revaluation every five years, and Dartmouth's is due for fiscal 2027. Town Administrator Cody Haddad said the town asked the state Department of Revenue for a year's extension and was denied. The town's first request for proposals drew no responses, and he signed a contract late last week with Vision Government Solutions, the only firm to answer the reissued request.
What changes on the bills
Dartmouth bills quarterly. The first two bills of the fiscal year, due Aug. 1 and Nov. 1, are preliminary, and the actual bill with each property's assessment normally covers the third and fourth quarters, Board of Assessors Chairman Kevin Santos said.
This year the town will mail a preliminary third-quarter bill in December, due Feb. 1, Santos said. The actual bill will cover only the fourth quarter and will probably be mailed sometime in May, with its due date depending on when it goes out. Under state law, an actual bill mailed after Dec. 31 is due May 1 or 30 days after mailing, whichever is later.
Select Board member Nathan Silva asked whether the timing would still let the actual bill be split over two quarters. It will not, the assessors answered, so any increase that would normally be spread over two bills will be due at once. If a tax bill goes up by $500, Haddad said, a taxpayer would owe the whole $500 on one bill instead of two payments of $250, and would not know until about 30 days ahead. The town has to collect the money by June 30, the end of the fiscal year, so there is little time to work out payment arrangements, Haddad said. The Select Board's tax classification hearing will also not happen when it usually does, because the rate will not be known, he said.
A Select Board member said senior, veteran, blind and hardship exemptions will not show up until that fourth-quarter bill either.
How the revaluation fell behind
Santos, an assessor since 1988, said Dartmouth had always done its recertifications in house. A former assessor stayed on as a part-time consultant and was paid to train Jessica Pacheco, the acting administrator of assessing, who has been with the office four years and is now certified, to run the revaluation. By a board meeting at the end of March, that work had not started, and the board decided it needed an outside company, the assessors said.
Haddad said he had made the training a high priority after meeting with Pacheco in December, and found out in March it was not happening. There was a falling out between the Board of Assessors and that consultant, he said, and he also found that no valid contract was in place for the consultant, who had been paid more than $10,000 in the fiscal year. That meant the town had violated Chapter 30B, the state's Uniform Procurement Act, Haddad said. The consultant left, and when the board wanted to bring him back, Haddad said, the town had to go through a request for proposals.
No firm answered that first request. Haddad said it was too narrow, and Vision, the company that provides the town's assessing software and usually answers such requests, was already committed to other towns in that time frame. After the state denied the extension, the Department of Revenue helped the town update the request, and it was reissued, he said. The assessors said other assessors they asked turned the job down because the town's property is so varied, and that the state agency offered to help. The contract with Vision is for $145,000, a figure read aloud at the meeting.
Select Board member David Tatelbaum asked the assessors to clarify where their account differed from the administrator's. One assessor said Haddad had never met with the Board of Assessors. Haddad said he had attended a couple of meetings and that the town's director of budget and finance, who reports to him, attends regularly on his behalf; the assessor said that had been only in about the last six months.
Where the revaluation stands
The firm's project begins Nov. 16, Santos said, and the schedule they read ends with the Dartmouth assessors' own review on April 13, 2027, after which the values go to the Department of Revenue for review and certification.
An assessor said the board saw the request for proposals but never saw the bid or the contract and did not vote on it, and that the decision was Haddad's alone. Haddad said that under state law the town's chief procurement officer is the contracting authority. The assessor added that everyone had known since March that the town had no one to do the work: "We haven't kept it a secret."
Assessor Edward Iacaponi said the firm's project manager wrote to the board Monday and has already pulled the town's sales file and the income and expense statements commercial property owners file each year. The firm will not visit every house, he said.
Staffing
The assessors said the office had two vacancies out of five positions for two years in a row, around 2021 to 2023, and that the Board of Assessors does not do the office's hiring. A Select Board member who served on the Charter Review Committee said five members would be a better number than three to share the work; an assessor answered that the need is in the office staff.
The Board of Assessors is Chairman Kevin Santos, Edward Iacaponi and Curtis Nunes.
Bills and questions
The second-quarter preliminary bill is due Nov. 1, a Sunday this year, so payments are on time through Monday, Nov. 2. Questions about assessments go to the Assessor's office in Room 213 at Town Hall, 400 Slocum Road, 508-910-1809. The full meeting is posted on Dartmouth Community Media's YouTube channel.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
Notes
Every fact comes from the town's video of the Oct. 26 Select Board meeting, the Select Board and Board of Assessors agendas, the assessors' May 14 minutes, the town's Board of Assessors and Assessor pages and Mass. General Laws c. 59, s. 57C. We read the records and transcribed the meeting video on Oct. 27. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar.
Corrections
No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.
Sources (7)
- Dartmouth Community Media: Town of Dartmouth Select Board Meeting, Oct. 26, 2026 (video, 3:15:25)Video transcribed Oct. 27, 2026.
- Town of Dartmouth: Select Board meeting agenda, Oct. 26, 2026Read Oct. 27, 2026.
- Town of Dartmouth: Joint meeting agenda, Select Board and Board of Assessors, Oct. 26, 2026Read Oct. 27, 2026.
- Town of Dartmouth: Board of Assessors minutes, May 14, 2026Read Oct. 27, 2026.
- Town of Dartmouth: Board of Assessors pageRead Oct. 27, 2026.
- Town of Dartmouth: Assessor department pageRead Oct. 27, 2026.
- Mass. General Laws c. 59, s. 57C (preliminary tax; installments; weekend due dates)Read Oct. 27, 2026.