In the wake of the closure of Madison Paper Industries, the company is now asking town officials in both Anson and Madison for a reduction in the amount of property taxes that are due this year.
Meanwhile, the company is still searching for a buyer of its dormant mill and active hydropower generator.
The shuttered paper company has asked for a roughly $4 million abatement on its property valuation in Anson and also plans to file an abatement in Madison by the end of the week, according to Madison Paper President and CEO Russ Drechsel.
“Considering we’re losing money every day we’re here, yes, it is a hardship (to pay taxes),” Drechsel said.
The mill ceased production in May, laying off 215 people in the state’s fifth paper mill closure in two years.
The abatement requests comes even as the Madison board of assessors last month approved an $8 million reduction in value for the mill on top of a $150 million reduction in value in 2014. Assessors cited the closure of the mill as a reason for the additional decrease in value of property and equipment.
The mill’s main property in Madison is currently valued at $72 million, which Drechsel said, “is too high for a facility that isn’t operating.”
Details of the abatement request to be filed in Madison were not available Wednesday. Madison Town Manager Tim Curtis said in an email that the town has not yet received the request and would not comment until after it could be reviewed by the Board of Assessors.
While the mill is no longer operating, Drechsel said that its hydropower generators in Anson are continuing to run and the company is selling the electricity to the New England market.
The company is continuing to look for a buyer for both the mill and hydropower facilities and there are “no new announcements” regarding potential buyers, he said.
The valuation increase in Anson comes largely from a reassessment of the hydropower assets, which have not been assessed in about 10 years, according to Arnold Luce, chairman of the Anson Board of Selectmen.
“Those hydropower facilities are still running,” Luce said. “They’re not really part of the mill, so whatever extra power they make they can sell. It really has nothing to do with the paper mill and the closing.”
Luce said that he does not anticipate the town granting the abatement request. “I think the revaluation is pretty solid,” he said. “Unless some information comes out that we don’t expect, I wouldn’t expect we would grant the request.”
Madison Paper is currently being asked to contribute about $1.5 million in taxes in Madison. Last year, when the mill’s main property in Madison was assessed at $80 million, the company paid $1.56 million.
Madison Paper also has more than $20 million in real estate and personal property in Anson, according to town tax records, and has been asked to pay $388,851 in taxes this year.
Last year the company was assessed at $16.4 million in Anson and paid $328,349 in taxes, according to town records.
“If you were an individual homeowner and your taxes went up 20 percent from last year, you’d be upset,” Drechsel said. “A corporation is no different.”
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