Gov. Ned Lamont directed Connecticut officials to pause new state valuations for agricultural land after farmers warned the changes could lead to steep property tax increases, keeping in place recommended land values last updated in 2020. The administration said the canceled assessments were intended to reflect Connecticut’s limited remaining farmland, but Lamont cited an “unforeseen lack of data” behind the valuation effort.
Lamont said the state had attempted to gather information needed to determine the going rate for farmland under the state’s valuation process. “Family farms are vital to Connecticut’s economy and are an essential part of our heritage,” Lamont said in a statement Monday, adding that “Preserving these lands is about more than economics, it’s about sustaining a way of life that defines Connecticut.”
In addition to halting the proposed reassessments, Lamont convened a working group that will bring together farmers, municipal leaders, assessors and state Department of Agriculture officials to propose reforms to how the state collects data and assesses farmland values. The move came as municipal assessors were approaching a Jan. 31 deadline to finalize their grand lists.
Farmers responded with immediate relief, even as an event meant to spotlight the issue proceeded as planned. Dozens of farmers gathered Tuesday at Hartford’s Legislative Office Building for a forum hosted by Senate Republicans, where lawmakers held a roundtable discussion to hear farmers’ concerns about taxes and related economic issues.
Paul Larson, president of the Connecticut Farm Bureau, said the decision was “a huge step forward” and “takes a lot of the the anxiety out of the room,” describing it as helpful “for the short term.” Larson and other farmers pointed to continuing concerns about whether the state’s valuation approach would produce fair results going forward.
The dispute grew in the weeks before the municipal deadline, as criticism of the proposed assessment levels escalated. Organizers said an online petition calling on the state to stop the new assessments had gathered more than 20,000 signatures as of Monday.
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding praised Lamont’s decision not to move forward, saying he believed it reflected the political pressure from farmers. Harding said he thought the governor realized that “in an election year, that he couldn’t have that,” and described the policy reversal as “the result of farmers putting pressure on their government to do the right thing.”
The assessments at the center of the fight were required under Public Act 490, a decades-old law aimed at preserving farmland and open spaces. The law uses taxation based on land valued under agricultural use—rather than fair market value for development—and it requires state officials to create a list of recommended land values updated every five years for use by local assessors. The state Office of Policy and Management sets the recommendations in consultation with the Department of Agriculture.
Under the most recent revaluation, OPM and the Department of Agriculture partnered with the University of Connecticut to conduct a survey of farmers who leased or rented their land. According to the survey researchers’ findings described in the report, the process was hampered by low response rates and incomplete data, with researchers estimating that only 145 rental or lease agreements were represented out of about 5,000 farms in Connecticut.
The report said earlier survey outreach included mailing more than 1,000 postcards with QR codes that would allow farmers to complete an online form, yielding 42 responses. Farmers also described ways they handle land arrangements that do not fit neatly into cash-based survey categories; the report says nearly half of respondents reported bartering or relying on other forms of no-cash agreements in exchange for land.
When the updated assessments were released in October, some farmers reported large increases in the taxable value of farmland. One example cited in the report was an increase for Tillable A farmland from $1,880 to $3,250 per acre, a 72% jump. The report also said some values were even higher in Connecticut River Valley regions.
Kim Grijalva, who operates a 100-acre cattle farm with her family in North Stonington, told the forum that the value of pastures used to graze cattle had grown four-fold. She also said the value of rocky “ledge” and creek acreage had risen from $40 an acre to $970 an acre, and warned that without revisions the potential property tax increase could reach several thousand dollars. “We would quit cattle ranching, it would make no financial sense,” Grijalva said.
After farmers protested the initial increases, OPM announced revisions in January that eased some of the biggest projected price spikes, the report said. But Grijalva said her farm still faced a potential tax increase before Monday’s reassessments were put on hold.
Shannon Chatfield, who owns the Stead Farm in Barkhamsted, said she was among those who never received notice of the survey, criticizing the outreach methods. “A lot of (farmers) are older, they’re not going to use QR codes, they’re not going to go online,” Chatfield said. She added: “We don’t even read our emails half the time, so unless it comes in paper form, directly in the mail, we’re not going to see it.”
Several speakers at Tuesday’s forum said the controversy had shaken trust between farmers and the Department of Agriculture, including the department’s commissioner, Bryan Hurlburt. A spokesperson for Lamont’s office said Tuesday that the governor remained supportive of Hurlburt and had no plans to change leadership at the agency.
Hurlburt, who did not attend the forum, later acknowledged flaws in the survey process and said the administration had responded to the concerns by rescinding the proposed assessments. “I think the reality is that we were listening and we heard, and we took the only corrective action that we could,” Hurlburt said, referring to the decision to rescind the proposed valuations.
Looking ahead, Hurlburt said it would likely take up to two years for the working group to develop recommendations for improving the assessment process, and lawmakers may need to codify changes through legislation depending on what the group proposes. Larson said the state would need to reexamine its methodology for reaching out to farmers and using self-reported information to calculate assessments under Public Act 490, arguing that it likely could not rely on the old survey system for future data collection.
Harding said he wanted the working group to move more quickly and suggested leaning more heavily on input from working farmers. “I think if we listened to (farmers) more we would have a good result for everybody, a fair result for everybody and, frankly, a quicker result,” he said.
—— This story was originally published by The Connecticut Mirror and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.