Shuttered Brayton Point assessed value drops more than 75 percent

SOMERSET — It’s official. Brayton Point for fiscal 2019 is worth a fraction of its prior $136.5 million value as the town’s largest taxpayer.

In fact, the coal-fired power plant that shut down operations on May 31, 2017, is expected to pay less than $1 million after paying $3.9 this year and $4.25 million the prior two years.

Principal Assessor Pam Lee told The Herald News on Wednesday that Brayton Point Energy LLC’s assessment for the 307-acre property on Mt. Hope Bay is $25,836,200, with another $4 million in personal property taxes. That’s about $30 million in value.

The state Department of Revenue this week “certified all of our values,” Lee said. That included residential, commercial, and industrial and a special industrial classification for Brayton Point, she said.

When compared with the $136,530,900 Brayton Point was assessed for fiscal 2018, the new figure is 22 percent of that prior year.

“Absolutely, the total tax will be under a million,” Lee stated with Somerset’s tax rate expected to be set by the town and certified by the DOR in the next few weeks.

The Board of Assessors and Board of Selectmen are scheduled to hold a tax classification hearing on Dec. 5 at 3 p.m. at Town Hall to determine the share of the tax levy upon residential-commercial-industrial taxpayers.

“Losing that much in value, I imagine that taxes are going to increase (substantially),” said Lee, who lives in town.

It’s been years since Brayton Point paid the town in the higher-end range of $10-13 million annually, but the lowering of the boom on its value has been long expected, Lee and other officials said.

“We’ve been talking about it for five years,” Lee said in reference to a prior owner, Dominion, announcing plans to close the plant in October 2013.

She said the 2019 assessment was provided by the town’s long-time consultants, Glenn Walker with Sansoucy Engineering & Appraisals in Newington, New Hampshire.

“I think we’ve spoken to Glenn as well as other consultants as far as the value. It comes to a point where this is what the value is,” Somerset Board of Assessors Chairman Marc Dionne said. Richard Gonsalves, the town’s long-time commercial consultant and former Fall River assessor, participated with Walker on the town’s land and property value assessment.

“To go down almost $100 million in value is testament to the plant closing completely,” said Dionne. For a portion of last fiscal year the plant was not generating electricity but some operations continued.

The 1,500-megawatt plant was the largest fossil fuel plant operating in New England.

“It’s one of those things, it is what it is,” Dionne said. He said the Board of Selectmen will “really have to make some hard decisions on how to approach their tax figures.”

Those recommendations will be reflected at the upcoming special Town Meeting on Dec. 3.

Walker said in a brief phone interview earlier this week that discussions with the new Brayton Point owner — Commercial Development Corp. in St. Louis — had been professional and productive.

He would only say that the taxes were going down.

Lee said of CDC on Wednesday, “They’re aware that we have valued it at this.”

“It comes as no surprise to anybody. The plant is now completely closed and the value will reflect that,” Somerset Finance Director Joseph Bolton after Lee provided the figures.

This summer Bolton said the town had continued to have considerable surplus funds after the DOR certified more than $7.8 million for its general fund.

That includes $3,622,585 the town received in Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funding as a result of the town’s two former power plants -- Brayton Point and Montaup – shutting down.

The town has consistently used the RGGI funds as its purpose to help lower the hit for taxpayers. In the upcoming weeks, however, they will be approximately $3 million shorter as a result of the reduced power plant assessment.

Lee summarized the DOR newly certified assessments by saying commercial and industrial properties (outside Brayton Point) were flat, residential values increased 6 percent and personal property grew, particularly from public utility taxpayers.

CDC has begun the demolition stage and announced this month marketing the property for wind and alternative energy reuse.

They acquired the property for $8.5 million from Dynegy Inc., Houston, on Jan. 18, registry records showed.

Email Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com or call him at 508-676-2573.