By Adam Swift
Last week’s annual Town Forum at the DeLeo Senior Center focused on the operations of the assessing, town clerk, and treasurer/collector’s offices.
Town Manager Tony Marino played brief videos from each office that highlighted what those departments do, and noted that the videos will be on the town website. In addition, Marino said the goal is to have short videos highlighting the activities and achievements of each department in the town.
In the assessing video, Deputy Assessor Kathleen Hickey spoke about how her department values all real estate and commercial property in the town and pulls together all the information it needs for the tax bills.
“Whether it is an excise bill or real estate bill, our role is to keep accurate records, and that is the reason we are going out to the properties, to be fair and equitable to everyone,” she said. “There are three reasons we would go out to a property; a sale, if there’s a large permit, and if it hasn’t been seen in ten years.”
Hickey said her office has a very good relationship with the public and the taxpayer because they work for the public and want to make sure everyone remains educated about what the department does.
In addition, Hickey said her department does the mapping for town properties on the website, as well as handles the tax exemptions for seniors, veterans, the disabled, and others who qualify.
“One thing that Kathy didn’t hit on, but that it is really important to point out is that when I started here, our new growth as we did the budget every year was around $230,000, $240,000,” said Marino. “Kathy and her team have plowed through the building permits and all of the other documents, and a few years in a row, we had new growth up over $500,000. I think we are going to steady out between $350,000 and $400,000, but it is due to the hard work of her team.”
Assistant Town Clerk Marilyn Puopolo said her department handles a number of transactions for residents, including marriage licenses and birth and death certificates. The department can also notarize documents for residents.
The department also handles new business licenses such as liquor licenses and taxi driver licenses.
“We also handle elections,” said Puopolo. “We started planning in September for our November election. Presidentials will start in the middle of the year.”
Town Clerk Denise Quist said the clerk’s office does everything it can to help everyone and get the right information out to the town and its residents.
“We like to work with other departments within the town hall, and we like to hope that we work with all of them with transparency,” said Quist.
Treasurer/Collector Brandon Carritte said his department prides itself on its ability to work with residents and other town departments.
“No one wants to pay a bill, but we do our best to be as friendly as possible and as helpful as possible, and that is one of the things that I like to reiterate to our group is that we are here to help people,” said Carritte. “We are all part of this community and we all know that times can be tough and everyone can have their challenges, it is just kind of the nature of the world, so we are here to help the community in any way that we can.”