Terri Sabens (Jericho Assessor)

Terri Sabens

Jericho Assessor

As a kid, Terri Sabens was always interested in real estate so when she was offered a retirement package after 30 years at IBM, she looked into becoming an assessor. In 2004, she got certified by the International Association of Assessing Officers and started her new career. The Vermont Board of Appraisers provides four levels of certification for assessors who are required to work for several years between the exams. Sabens is Level 3, a process which takes roughly eight years.

Initially Sabens worked in Montpelier, followed by three years in Shelburne, St. George, and Panton. She spent almost a dozen years in Essex and started working in Jericho in 2019. She also works in Morristown where she is training someone to replace her, and she has contracts in Georgia and Westford.

The job of an assessor is to maintain the Grand List which is the list of all property owners in town. Sabens spends four hours a week in Jericho. Her job requires visiting properties where permits have been requested for alterations or additions and seeing how much work has been done. For instance, a house that is only a shell with a roof would not be assessed at the full value until after it is finished. Inspections are generally done during the third week of March because assessments are based on the value of the property on April 1.

Although most of her work is based on permits, Sabens will also visit properties if neighbors report work where permits haven’t been requested. If she finds an unauthorized alteration or addition, she’ll contact Jericho’s Zoning Administrator so a permit can be issued.

Property owners have the right to challenge their property assessment during an annual grievance period which is 14 days after they receive their assessment. They can request a hearing but if they call ahead of time, Sabens will go to the property to see if the grievance is valid and if so, spare them the need to come to Town Hall.

Sabens has created her own LLC, but she finds that towns prefer to put her on their payroll. She said the limited hours of an assessor means that very few young people are interested in the position. At one point she drafted an interlocal agreement for Johnson and Hyde Park with Johnson as the parent town. This resulted in a position with more hours and Sabens was able to train someone to take that job. She is planning on creating an interlocal agreement with Jericho, Georgia, and Westford so that when she retires, there will be someone to take her place. She and her longtime friend, Lister Lori Dykema will be retiring around the same time, and she doesn’t want to leave the town without a replacement.

Sabens is a native Vermonter who grew up in the North End of Burlington. She recently sold the house she grew up in to the daughter of the woman she used to babysit for. She lives in Milton where she enjoys swimming in her backyard pool and playing with her dogs Lucy, a lab/hound/Doberman mix, and Sip of Sunshine, a goldendoodle.

Sabens said there are additional pieces to her job such as reviewing Homestead Declarations and doing assessments of utilities which are collected by the state. Jericho has no seasonal properties which are subject to a separate kind of appraisal and there is only one property in town that qualifies as subsidized housing.

Sabens enjoys her work. She notes that the job can sometimes be tough. Homeowners who get appraisals from a bank get commended for their improvements, but her job is to look for problems. “I’m the bad guy,” she said. “I show up and people say that I’m there to raise their taxes but I remind them that I don’t vote in town so they can’t blame me.”