FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 9, 2022
CONTACT INFO. :
Office of the Mayor
Patricia Resende
(401) 529-3207
City, State officials rally to delay property revaluation; Legislation passes
EAST PROVIDENCE, RI – The City of East Providence Administration, together with the City Council, has worked with state legislators to pass legislation which authorized the City to delay the implementation of the most recent revaluation until December 2022.
Mayor Bob DaSilva worked with legislators including House Majority Whip Katherine Kazarian, Rep. Gregg Amore, Rep. Liana Cassar, Rep. Brianna Henries, Sen. Valarie Lawson, and Sen. Cynthia Coyne to pass legislation delaying the city’s revaluation and using the assessed values as of the last completed statistical valuation performed as of December 31, 2018.
The findings of the revaluation showed the real estate market was unstable and faced large fluctuations in value within the various classes of property within East Providence.
The housing market saw an unprecedented acceleration between March 2021 and March 2022.
The market had an extreme imbalance in supply and demand driving the sales prices of certain property types to inflated levels and the City believes that many of the contributing factors for the inflation were related to the pandemic. As the City approached the end of the revaluation process and saw rising interest rates, gas prices and the war in Ukraine, it was determined that delaying the revaluation by a year was the right move for our residents. One of the main purposes of a revaluation is to be sure that all properties are assessed in a fair and equitable manner.
This was an atypical evaluation period what would have unfairly burdened our property owners with an enormous tax increase at a time when we are all facing higher costs because of global events.
“We worked hard to pass this legislation to benefit the people,” Mayor Bob DaSilva said. “The assessment of real estate needs to be based on stable market conditions. With the unstable market conditions and large fluctuations, we had to move to request this delay and we are thankful to all our partners at the local and state level for working to pass this legislation.”
“Had we moved forward with this revaluation and had we not worked with our state delegation to make this change, residents would have seen artificially inflated increases in tax payments for the next three years,” DaSilva added.
The mailing of this year’s tax bill has been delayed because we were awaiting the passing of this legislation.
We expect real estate bills to be issued the week of June 13, 2022. The due date for the discount is July 1, 2022. Property owners will see an approximate 1.6 percent tax increase – which is on average a $70 increase.
The due date for the first quarter or full payment without the discount is July 1, 2022 with a seven calendar day grace period.
The City is delaying the mailing of the motor vehicle tax bill because it is waiting on the General Assembly to eliminate the car tax a year earlier than planned. If that is to occur, we will see a complete phase out of the car tax bill.
