GREENVILLE – Property sales in Greenville continue to outpace valuations, putting the community at risk of losing state subsidy and of paying higher county taxes.

To help counter this problem, a townwide revaluation will be conducted starting this summer and ending in the fall of 2006 with new values in place. Of the $96,000 project costs, four-fifths will be funded in the 2005-2006 municipal budget.

Town officials recently received preliminary figures for 2006 from the Maine Revenue Service, Property Tax Division, that show a new town valuation of $237,450,000, which represents a $46.65 million jump in one year. On the flip side, the town’s total assessed value for 2004-2005 is $156,282,000, which is $81.17 million less than the state’s valuation for the same properties.

“You can see there’s a very large gap,” Greenville Town Manager John Simko told selectmen last week. “We need a revaluation very badly; this demonstrates very clearly we’re out of whack,” he said. “It’s almost like we took a town or two and added it to our assessed value.”

Simko said the growth in state valuation in two years is a “finite value larger” than the total state valuation for most other Piscataquis County towns except Dover-Foxcroft and Guilford.

This growth has consequences. Most notable is the anticipated loss of state aid for education and the projected increase in the county tax, according to Simko. He said the town and local schools must continue to appeal to the state and county for an equal share of services and funds.

According to the state sales study, some Greenville properties sold for three times their assessed value. For example, a waterfront property valued at $99,800 sold for $325,000 and a residential property valued at $16,600 sold for $67,000. In the study, a few properties had a higher assessed value than their selling prices.

Until the revaluation is completed and in effect, the high appreciated values on certain properties will continue to be greatly undervalued, which will cause the mill rate to increase for all property owners, according to Simko.

The new values under the revaluation will be reflected in the 2006 tax bills.