Sec. 1. 36 MRSA §578, sub-§1, as amended by PL 1997, c. 24, Pt. C, §4 and affected by §18, is further amended to read:

1. Organized areas. The municipal assessors or chief assessor of a primary assessing area shall adjust the State Tax Assessor's 100% valuation per acre for each forest type of their county by whatever ratio, or percentage of current just value, is then being applied to other property within the municipality to obtain the assessed values. Forest land in the organized areas, subject to taxation under this subchapter, must be taxed at the property tax rate applicable to other property in the municipality, which rate is applied to the assessed values so determined.

The State Tax Assessor shall pay any municipal claim found to be in satisfactory form within 90 days after receipt of the claim.

In tax years beginning on or after April 1, 1988, the State Tax Assessor shall determine annually the amount of acreage in each municipality that is classified and taxed in accordance with this subchapter. A municipality actually levying and collecting municipal property taxes and within whose boundaries this acreage lies is entitled to annual payments from money appropriated by the Legislature provided it submits an annual return in accordance with section 383 and it achieves the appropriate minimum assessment ratio described in section 327. For the property tax year based on the status of property on April 1, 1988, the per acre reimbursement amount increases from 15¢ to 24¢. For property tax years based on the status of property on April 1, 1989 or thereafter, the per acre reimbursement is 90% of the per acre tax revenue lost as a result of this subchapter. For purposes of this section, the tax lost is the tax that would have been assessed, but for this subchapter, on the classified forest lands if they were assessed according to the undeveloped acreage valuations used in the state valuation then in effect, or according to the current local valuation on undeveloped acreage, whichever is less, minus the tax that was actually assessed on the same lands in accordance with this subchapter. A municipality that fails to achieve the minimum assessment ratio established in section 327 loses 10% of the reimbursement provided by this section for each one percentage point the minimum assessment ratio falls below the ratio established in section 327. A municipality that fails to file a claim by the deadline established in section 383 loses 1% of the reimbursement provided by this section for each day that the claim is overdue.

No municipality may receive a reimbursement payment under this section that would exceed an amount determined by calculating the