Postcards with new property valuations will be sent out to Farmington property owners on Sept. 12, followed by an opportunity for owners to talk to appraisers about the new valuations.

Ken Rodgers, president of KRT Appraisal, gave an update to the Farmington Select Board on Tuesday via Zoom.

The new values were calculated as of April 1, Town Manager Erica LaCroix said.

KRT Appraisal is headquartered in Haverhill, Massachusetts, but has offices in Maine. The company did a full revaluation of properties in the town for an overall cost of $312,500, which included converting and upgrading software to a new system and revaluating personal business property. The company was the sole bidder in 2023 for the revaluation effort.

Property owners will be able to make appointments with KRT to talk about the valuations from Sept. 15-26. A number to make appointments will be listed on the postcard.

The town’s assessor, Frank Xu, will be trained on the new program.

KRT Appraisal has plenty of staff to handle calls and in-person appointments, Rodgers told the board.

“The two weeks is to go over the accuracy of their valuation with KRT if they believe there is something that’s incorrect,” LaCroix wrote in email. “If they cannot make a hearing in the two-week period they still have the opportunity to review their assessment with the assessor and file an abatement if warranted.”

The new valuations will also be listed on KRT’s website www.krtappraisal.com/dist/index  under “Farmington, Maine” starting Sept. 12.

The board will set the tax rate at its meeting Oct. 14.

If the town did not do a full revaluation, the certified state ratio — the town’s property valuation compared to what it should be valued at — would have been 59%, LaCroix said.

Such a low rate would have hurt residents who qualify for exemptions, such as the homestead exemption, and indirectly hurt all town taxpayers because Farmington would receive less in state revenue sharing, something that has already happened this year, she said.

An informational session will he held Sept. 10 on what the new property values mean, LaCroix said.

“It is extremely important that taxpayers understand that their tax bills do not go up by the same percentage as their (property) value,” she wrote in an email.

The tax bill will be based on the new tax rate as determined by the new valuation of the entire town, divided by the annual budget — how much money needs to appropriated — multiplied by the new property value, she said.

Usually when a revaluation is done, property valuations increase and the tax rate decreases.

Individual properties may be higher in value due to structural improvements, home additions or new outbuildings, among other things, LaCroix said.

If improvements weren’t reported prior to April 1, they would have been picked up during the field data gathering and the changes show up in the revaluation instead, she said.

The town will hold a meeting at 6 p.m. on Sept. 10 and 11 a.m. on Sept. 18 at the Town Office at 153 Farmington Falls Road to discuss a potential change in setting the town budget from a calendar year to a July 1 through June 30 year.