BREWER – The board of assessment review set a new value Thursday for the Ellen M. Leach Memorial Home, and the figure is millions more than what was requested by the home’s operators, but millions less than what the city has as its value.

“Neither side got the numbers they were looking for,” city attorney Erik Stumpfel of Bangor said after the meeting.

The city assessed the property like a commercial property, on a replacement value basis, and developed a property value of $6.9 million for both fiscal years 2004-05 and 2005-06, City Assessor Mary Lynne Hunter told the panel.

The Leach Home board hired an independent appraiser to evaluate the property and came up with a figure of $2.1 million.

The final figure, established by the assessment board, was in the middle at $4,031,999.

“We’re just trying to be fair,” Ron Harriman, assessment review board chairman, said.

The Leach Home board of directors still has questions about the formula used by the assessment board to create the final figure and is awaiting the board’s written decision before deciding how to move forward, Frank McGuire, Leach Home board president, said after the meeting.

“I think a concern is what the city decides to do from here, in the current and future tax years,” he said.

The Leach Home directors appealed two years’ worth of taxes – $139,149 for this year and $146,950 for 2004-05 – which they said were unreasonable since the facility subsidizes rents for 80 percent of its clientele and operates in the red.

At issue was how to compute tax credits associated with the facility that require a majority of renters be low-income and the charitable trust established by Mabel Tyrell in 1926 that originally helped create the Leach Home and annually supplements its budget.

The home provides housing and a number of services, including a daily meal, to mostly low-income senior citizens on Brewer Housing Authority land on Colonial Circle.

A lot of Thursday’s discussion concerned whether the meal provided to all residents of the home should be calculated in the property’s value, since nearly 20 percent of residents pay market rents that include additional funds for the meals.

With the new assessed value, the tax bills are $85,391 for 2004-05 and $80,869 for 2005-06, Hunter calculated. The decrease between the two years is due to a drop in the city’s property tax rate.

The Leach Home opened in 1995 with 30 apartments and congregate living space. Another 30 units were completed in 1997 and a third 30-unit wing was added in 2002, which added significant value.

The expiration of a special city assessment agreement, which kept the Leach Home’s value low, and an increase in property value because of the third wing construction made the annual tax bill spike, Hunter said.

The 2006-07 tax bills, issued in the beginning of August, will reflect the $6.9 million value because of timing of the board’s decision, which Hunter described as unfortunate.

“My numbers have already gone to the tax office for tax bills purposes,” she said after the meeting. “I’m sure when they get their tax bill, they’ll be appealing ’07.”

City councilors will need to decide how future assessments are handled, Stumpfel said.

“It’s certainly a larger issue statewide because of the number of subsidized programs,” he said. “It’s a tough issue.”

Before the meeting ended, Frank McGuire, Leach Home board president, thanked the volunteer assessment board for their hard work on the issue over the last several months.