NORWICH – Norwich officials have revived discussions of a possible city-wide re-evaluation of property assessments that would change the tax bill for most homeowners.

Members of the Norwich Joint Committees addressed the issue at their monthly meeting Tuesday. The prospect of a city-wide re-evaluation was first bought up in the fall of 2014, but was pigeonholed by the Common Council last year.

According to City Assessor Brian Fitts, a re-assessment is overdue; and while there’s no law stipulating when a municipality should conduct a re-evaluation, he said assessments only become more lopsided with time.

The city hasn’t conducted a city-wide reassessment in 28 years. And since homeowners are taxed according the value of their property, inequity in the city’s assessment role means property owners who are over-assessed are shouldering the tax burden for those who are under-assessed.

Fitts explained the issue to the Joint Committees on Tuesday.

“A majority of the assessments were set 28 years ago. Over the course of time, the market has changed. Different pockets of the city have changed in value, so the assessments have changed,” he said. “A [re-assessment] is about equity ... In my daily work in the assessor’s office, I see massive inequities in the roll, and that’s no one’s fault. That’s just a result of time.”

Currently, the city’s equalization rate hovers 66 percent. The goal is to get that figure close to 100 percent by re-assessing every property in the city, be it residential, business or nonprofit. The intent, said Fitts, isn’t to increase revenue for the city, but to make sure that every taxpayer is paying their fair slice of the pie.

The city assesses property value using a number of variables, such as current trends in sales over the last three years and the state’s projections of the city’s overall worth. Estimated worth of additional structures on the property, including pools, garages or sheds, are subtracted with the estimated property value to determine the value of the house.

While there’s no doubt that property values have fluctuated over the last three decades, the suggestion of a re-evaluation still raises some pertinent concerns, according to Fifth Ward Alderman David Zieno.