Search

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 5

inspection for an abatement, they are performing an inspection for a building permit, it could be a recent
sale that they are qualifying. That activity should always be included in our CAMA System with a date and
the reason for that inspection and that hadn’t always been done. So we issued a directive immediately,
even before Mr. Cornell has finished his audit, as soon as he came to us and said that was one of his
findings.

We talked about developing annual inspection goals, recording every building permit inspection, hiring of
temporary data collectors, which we did back last October. We hired a few data collectors from KRT to
assist us with some building permit. He talked about converting to a table-driven depreciation system;
moving away from the EYB or Effective Year Built, which we certainly discussed here at the Board before.
This has to be done during a Full Measure & List and it has to be done with the issuance of a (inaudible).
And then he talked about updating the data collection manual prior to the Full Measure & List and that’s
important to make sure that when you are going into the Full Measure & List, you are using data collection
procedures the same across the board by all data collectors. And we completed that this past February
with Vision.

So | included his audit summary because | think that this is important because while Mr. Cornell did identify
eight areas where we needed improvement, he also noted that some of his recommendations have been
implemented or already had or will have been implemented in the foreseeable future. We already had
plans in place. We had already identified them in the Management Audit and he did note what we felt was
true, that a lot of the issues within the Assessing Department would be handled by completing that Full
Measure & List and we knew that we were already actively moving in that direction.

The Full Measure & List, you can see, we’ve outlined kind of a timetable for you here. The RFP, that
process was through September. Then we had the review and the interviews of the candidates; we drafted
a contract, we went through a contract process with the New Hampshire DRA who are required to sign off
on the contract. It was February before we got to the Finance Committee with the contract and it was
ultimately approved. Since then | am happy to report that the full revaluation is going very smoothly, very
few complaints and we have had few hiccups with COVID in there, but we had the joint update and Vision,
the New Hampshire DRA, our Board of Assessors held a start-up meeting the beginning of March. And
then they began their data collection and as you can see, a couple weeks later, COVID sprang, which
caused some problems with interior inspections and we needed to amend our contract with Vision for the
safety of our residents and for the safety of Vision’s staff.

We did that and that was immediately approved by the DRA and we suspended our interior inspections,
continued with the exterior inspections and the taking of pictures for the property record cards and that has
continued. We have not resumed interior inspections as of yet.

So because the Full Measure & List was required by the Board of Tax & Land Appeals, the City is required
to file a quarterly update with them and the first update which was filed July 7" was included in your
package and that’s what was sent to the Board of Tax & Land Appeals. As you can see, it is quite
thorough, we really walked through all of the bi-weekly reports that we get from Vision as well as an
accurate timeline of everything that has taken place from March to the end of June.

As you can see here, it is moving quite well, we are about 30% done, this is residential only, they have not
begun commercial as of yet. But the important thing to note here is that they have only had 92 refusals. So
out of over 7,500 measures, they've only had 92 refusals to date and that’s very good. Vision is very
pleased, as are we. We do hold bi-weekly meetings with the City and the Vision Project Team. The project
is on schedule as we said, very few complaints, so that’s the first recommendation by Cornell Consultants.

The second one or actually the 7" one on the list but the second one | want to deal with here, was convert
to the table-driven depreciation system. As | said, you won't see that until 2022 and that’s when Vision will
complete that when they move to that section of the revaluation. And here you can see, we presented this
map when June Perry the Project Lead for Vision came to the Board of Assessors in June and that
YouTube Video is up if you wanted to review her conversation and her update to the Board of Assessors.

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 6

As you can see by the shaded areas, at this point they had really just started Ward 3, but the residential
properties in Ward 1 and 2 had been completed.

So another area that we wanted to look at was Cornell's recommendation on developing a long-range
schedule and developing annual inspection goals. So we contracted with Cornell Consultants to create a
management data collection tool, which is called Power BI and that’s the analytic tool that we chose to use.
Cornell Consultants is very knowledgeable, they are actually a Certified Instructor on this tool and they
came in and they helped us put together some internal and external dashboards. What it does is it helps
you visualize your data and share insights across your organization. So Cornell Consultants takes this
Power BI System and it is connected right to our CAMA System and they extract the data to create these
dashboards. It can be updated nightly, we have chosen to do it nightly; it could be 2 or 3 times a day, that
is really up to you. We would like to put the external dashboards on our Website for the use of our
residents while the internal dashboards are really providing management information, things that will help
us create those long-range schedules and goals.

I'll give you an example in just a moment, but one of the other things that it is important to note is our GIS
Team is also working on an updated GIS Viewer, so we are dealing with CDM Smith and they are working
on that. They expected to have that ready by now, but the GIS Team was assisting the EOC during the
COVID and they were working on some important tools for the EOC so we put this aside. They are also
working on a new residential comparable sales tool. This is a tool that we were asked to work on by
residents who were completing abatements and were having trouble looking for comparable sales in our
current system. So we actually expect that within the next month.

But back to the Power BI — this is just an example. And this will be connected, this particular dashboard to
our Website. So what it does is, as you can see, it gives you the number of inspections for all years. So
you are seeing 127,000 up in the left-hand corner of the screen. In the right hand corner you can see there
is a dropdown for activity results, if you click in that dropdown it would give you a bunch of different types of
inspections and you could click on that and you will refresh the data and it will tell you by inspection type,
how many have been conducted and when.

In the middle of the screen you will see an activity date. You can change the dates that you'd like to
search. One of the things that we felt that this might help residents with, is as our full revaluation moves
along, you are going to see these numbers jump because now we are going to be out doing inspections of
all of our properties. So we wanted to give residents the opportunity to see that and kind of track it on their
own on our website. These colored boxes that you see, that’s another way. You could click on the box so
a Measure & List is a type of inspection, you could click on that purple box and it will tell you now in the
upper left-hand corner exactly how many of those 127 inspections were Measures & List or how many were
external only or how many were field reviews. So it is an interesting tool, it’s very interactive, and that’s
one that will be available on our website.

The second tool is the average sales price for homes, both the average and the median sale price by year.
So if you see in the middle of the screen the building style, you could choose the building style, again the
data will refresh and it will show you the information based upon that building. You could change the years
that you are searching, you could change what type of verification you are looking for. So do you want to
look at Deeds, do you want to look at MLS Data, do you want to look at certain neighborhoods within. We
felt that this one tool that may help, again, our residents when they are searching for that abatement
information. Other people that may find this data informative would be real estate appraisers, things of that
sort. So those are two of the tools that will be accessible on the website.

Now | am going to turn it over to Nick Miseirvitch who is going to talk about the BP5 Upgrade. Nick?

Nick Miseirvitch, IT Department

Thank you, Director Kleiner, Madam President, Members of the Board of Aldermen, Members of the Board
of Assessing. Alright so when we started this project, | had to become familiar with both the new system

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 7

which we refer to as AP5 and the existing system that the Assessing Department has been using for

several years which we refer to as Classic. So right off the bat, AP5 has a much improved user interface
over the Classic CAMA System. It is easier and friendlier to use, and it is also gives a full screen view of
the system as opposed to a tiny window as in Classic. So our staff can see more information at one time.

There are multiple ways to search for information, which | have a slide that | will show later on what this
entails. It also has autofill dropdowns, so as soon as you type information that you are searching for, the
dropdown will automatically find anything that matches that. So, again, a lot easier and quicker to find
information. We can open any section and have multiple sections in for quick display. So instead of
toggling back and forth as we had to do in the old system, it’s all right there, right in front on the main
screen for our staff to click through and get to whatever they use most often. Info for past years is quickly
accessible without having to switch to a different data base. Again, with AP 5, everything is in a single
database, all past years. In Classic, each year had its own data base. So we are much better off with AP5
as the Assessing Department can quickly go back to historic information if they are researching any sort of
issue that arises.

With that, the new system also has the ability to change the color scheme for what they are looking at, the
user interface, so it brings the attention of a different year if they are not in the current year so they know
right away if they are where they need to be. It has improved filter capability. The filter function in the old
system was not that great. The new one is much more powerful and it is very easy to use. It is based on
what they call sequel queries, which is the data base that the City uses and this application is hooked into.
There are also new tools such as Lookup Grid, which again, very powerful can look up a lot of data with
very few clicks. The staff is really excited about that feature. They use it quite a bit.

Historic images and sketches are preserved for previous years. In AP§, this is all in the database. It is not
separate files like the old system. So you can have an image and sketch for a particular property for 2018
and then you can have a new sketch and an image for 2019 and the database keeps track of all that
information. So as staff looks back, they can see the gradual changes all in the same system. And also we
can hide closed accounts using the simple check box. That’s important so we don’t necessarily need to be
recording on accounts that have been closed, but it’s good to have that historic information at the tip of your
fingers.

Alright, Kim can you — alright so here’s a screen shot and yes you will see my name, | am a citizen of the
City of Nashua and | consent to have my information displayed so we don’t run into any problems. So the
Year Toggle, that’s where you would switch back for the current year versus previous years, as well as
going forward, you can also program information for future (audio cuts out) which will be very helpful
because then like at the end of the year at tax season ordinarily the staff would have to wait until the tax
process has been completed. With AP5, they don’ have to wait, we can set the new year and they can
start entering information for the future.

The Hide Closed Accounts is just a simple check box whether they are displayed or not. In the purple, this
is what | was referring to as multiple ways you can search for information; the account number, personal ID,
the street, or the owner. Here is a screen shot of a couple examples of the sections that can be pinned and
it is based on whatever staff is working on the most. So on the top you have the account detail, you have
the building section, the land section and special features and yard items. Another person could have the
exemptions, appeals, permits and the owners. The sky is the limit, whatever information that they use
most, they can have pinned. And if they are not using it at any one time, they can simply close that and
then reselect it which is on a menu which was not included in the slide unfortunately.

Here is the filter function, we can select just about any field in the database as you see on the left hand
side, those are the different tables, you simply expand them to get to the fields, the create the expression,
put in a value that we are looking for such as | want all building permits that were created for 2020. | build
that query and hit the query button and it gives that result in the filter result in the bottom right hand side.
What Assessing can do next is save that filter and the system will navigate through just those parcels or

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 8

accounts that meet that criteria so they don’t have to go keep searching for it over and over again, it will be
right there for them, just scroll through everything.

Another nice feature with AP5 is everything is exportable to Excel. So they do a filter on something and
they can quickly export that information to an Excel Spreadsheet. Along with the upgrade comes enhanced
security, it’s now integrated with the City’s Window's Accounts, so no additional passwords for users to
remember. This is referred to a Single Sign On. So it’s great for IT so we can quickly manage who has
access to the system so as people come on or as people leave the City, we can quickly take care of that
within our normal duties. We do not have go and remember the take care of some other authentication
mechanisms. Permissions are now based on roles instead of individuals for easier maintenance. So an
example like the clerks will have certain permissions that they are allowed to do, the Assessors will have
certain permission that they are allowed to do. We can do it by read only, we can control who can create,
we can control who can modify and we can control who can delete any record in the system.

There’s increased granularity, we can do the permissions down to a field. We don’t have to do a specific
form or table as was the previous table. We can go down to the field level, which is very nice and makes
life much easier for IT, because that is less stuff that we have to fix in case someone does something that
they shouldn’t do. We have the ability to make the field required before a save can be made, so this is
good as we re-write the procedures so there is certain information that we want to capture and it forces
whoever is entering that information to add that particular info. So again, we have it tracked for historic
purposes. Anything that is changed in the system is now audited so we can see what fields were changed
by who and when. Previous years are easily locked down to prevent changes being made, for example, as
soon as we prepare the system for December tax bills, we put that year in read only status so no one can
make any changes. Again, we can keep the future year open to create additional changes. So it keeps
them working, we don’t have the time lapse that we had with the Classic version.

And finally, where we currently stand with the integration. We conducted dual entry in the old and new
systems for 3 months to verify functionality. This gave the staff time to become familiar with the new
system, where things were located. It gave us the ability to make sure that the new system is calculating
things the same way that we were being done in the old system. AP5 has been integrated with the City’s
new Building Permit Application, Civicgov. So the two systems are passing data back and forth as new
accounts are created, they get passed up to Civicgov as permits are created by the Building Department,
they come into AssessPro. Also, it has been integrated with the City’s GIS System, so the multiple maps
that we have on-line. It is feeding information out to that on a daily basis, so that information is updated
daily so a citizen can go to any one of our GIS maps that contain information, Assessing Information and
see the current information.

It has also been integrated with the City’s Tax Collection System, MUNIS so we can process the
information and send it to the Tax Department and they can upload it for the tax billing cycle. Importantly
we removed the dependency on Admins for the exemptions and credits process. And the final dependency
on Admins for the abatement process will be converted by the end of this month. We are in the process of
just verifying that, well actually not verifying creating the same type of file that MUNIS needs for the
abatements. We are also implementing mobile tablets for data entry in the field. This will be completed by
end of July which will allow the Assessors to make changes right in the field. So as they go out on an
inspection they don’t have to write on a piece of paper and bring it back, they make the changes right in the
system and it is live. So as soon as they make that change it is there for the rest of the team to act on it.

The MS1 Report that we file with the State matches that of the old system for December 2019 and the July
2020 tax bills. This was important because we needed to make sure we are providing the same
information out of both systems. We are also working with Patriot to develop a custom property record card
that is easy to read for both citizens and Assessors. This is also planned to be done by the end of July.
There’s information on their base card that the City does not use. So it is pointless to have it display. We
want to have the information displayed that is important for us and our citizens. We are also upgrading the
over-the-counter application that citizens use to look up current information when they come into City Hall,
I’m sorry, I’ve got to slow down here, wrong slide, OK there we go.

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 9

This will be completed by the end of August so it is going to be a snap in to the new system, very different
from how the old system is. It is going to be the same look and feel as staff has and with the ability to look
up the information as was done in the past. Alright, Kim, that’s all that | have.

Director Kleiner

Thank you, Nick. So this was a really large project and one that we could not have gotten completed
without Nick’s help, without that of IT. There was a lot of testing, it went a little longer than we thought but |
have to say that we had to be sure, there was no room for error here, so there was a lot of testing by a lot
of different Assessors and IT and we thank them for that. | am going to move a little quicker, because |
know you have a Full Board of Aldermen Meeting to get to.

Important to note, tomorrow night at Finance Meeting, you will see a contract in front of you for
Consultant/Assessing Supervisor that we hope the Finance Committee will pass. Rex Norman is not
unknown to the City, he worked for us years ago and served on our Board of Assessors and has been the
Chief Assessor for Windham for a number of years. And we believe that while we are still looking for a
Chief Assessor, that search has not stopped, that Mr. Norman will provide us with great technical advice.

Also there were — you know COVID set everyone back a little and some changes needed to be made for
COVID so we had some temporary policies that needed to be implemented for abatements and building
permits and those were approved by our Board. As Nick noted, we are still working on the tablets and we
are going to have our first instructional use with our Assessors this Friday. And then, again, tomorrow night
at Finance you are going to see a contract with Inception Technology. This is for the scanning of all of our
property record files. One thing that we found during the COVID working remote experience was that our
Assessors really needed access to these files. So we are looking at using Docuware Software to make
theses records easily accessible to our staff remotely. So while they are on those tablets and they are
working directly on the CAMA System, they can also pull up a full property record file and have that
information in front of them.

It is important to note and everyone always seems very interested in the number of abatements that we
receive. So for 2019 we are going to see a drop, we had 164 versus the 393 from 2018 which was an
update year. | take this as an indication and that is one that we are happy to see when those abatements
go down.

Moving forward, it has been asked a lot so what do our Assessors do during a Full Revaluation? No, we
don’t get time off. Their workload does not actually decrease. Our Assessors have a lot of required
training for their Certification which we have been holding off on because of the AP5 Upgrade. We needed
all staff in. We had a number of changes as you can see from September's update to this one. So they
need to get out there and get that required Certification. We have Professional Development that we have
lined up both with the NHAAO and then some with IAAO. Some of our Assessors are interested in taking
some appraisal courses and we strongly advise our Assessors to have more professional development and
education as we do all our staff.

We have building modifications coming up, building of a new customer service area including ADA access.
We are going to get some of that Power BI that we talked about earlier, we are all going to learn that and
become experts and we are going to deal with the whole revaluation. We have to monitor the project, we
have to meet with them, we have to provide property record cards, weekly building permits, attend weekly
meetings. The Assessors work with Vision every day of the project.

Then we have to build our cyclical inspection process, we have to develop that so when the Full
Revaluation ends, we have a process of how we are going to ensure that all of our properties are inspected
over a period of time. One of the goals, one of the strong goals from Cornell Consultants that needs to take
place at the end of this reval.

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 10
So Madam President, | am sorry we are a little long, but we can take any questions.
President Wilshire

Thank you, Director Kleiner. Does anyone on the Board have questions for Director Kleiner? Alderman
Clemons?

Alderman Clemons

| do. Thank you, it’s actually not a question, | just wanted to say that | really appreciate the update from the
staff, the open and transparency of everything. | think that you are doing a fabulous job. You’ve answered
all of my questions. | don’t need to ask you anything because you have covered it all. Thank you very
much for your dedicated service to our City. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Anyone else? Alderwoman Lu?

Alderwoman Lu

Yes, | have several questions. Thank you, Madam Chairman. You know | had like several items that |
wasn’t familiar with and at this point it took a lot longer than | expected and | don’t know what to focus on.
For instance, you mentioned that GIS has been assisting EOC during the COVID and I’m not sure what
EOC is.

Director Kleiner

Emergency Operations Center.

Alderwoman Lu

OK. And the 92 refusals, what were they refusing? It was mentioned that there were 92 refusals which
was really good.

Director Kleiner

Yes, so when Vision’s data collectors approached the door, it is their practice to knock, they step back 6
feet, they inform the resident that they will be measuring the outside of the property and that they will be
taking some photographs that will be included on our property records. Those 92 residents chose not to
have the data collectors measure their property, they refused.

Alderwoman Lu

That was just — can | follow up, Madam Chairman?

President Wilshire

Alderman Lu.

Alderwoman Lu

So that was just to measure the exterior. So in the case that that happens, | know that in the past it was

discussed that at last resort we would have to have | don’t know the legal word, something. So we can’t
just measure that without their permission huh? That would require a warrant of some type?

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 11
Director Kleiner

So even since those residents chose not to let the Assessors measure at that time, all residents will receive
a letter asking for an interior inspection or for an exterior inspection also if it wasn’t completed later on in
the process. So we will make another attempt, you know, could it have been that was a bad time, really a
bad time for that resident? There’s many different reasons. But we will circle back and we will make
another attempt to complete that inspection.

Alderwoman Lu

Ok, thank you. Other questions | wondered the Cornell Report is that — my recollection is Dave Cornell was
originally contracted to write a management dashboard reporting system. Did his contract change after
December of 2019 to include the report?

Director Kleiner

So actually Cornell Consulting was first worked on the assessment back last fall. And he worked with both
the Assessing and the Legal Department at that point for the audit. The Power BI Contract was later in
February/March timeframe that he was brought in and contracted with to do the Power BI Dashboard. Two
different...

Alderwoman Lu

So the Power BI Dashboards are currently up and running?

Director Kleiner

They are in final draft mode now, they are working, Mr. Cornell is working with our IT Department so that
we can get the public dashboards loaded to our website and we are making some changes and final
specifications to the internal tools.

Alderwoman Lu

But the internal tools are being used now?

Director Kleiner

No, we are making some final changes to them, but we are very close.

Alderwoman Lu

There were a lot of different softwares that have been described and | know that you started out with about
10 different software systems and we have just seen a presentation of several more. So | remember that
the management audit report recommended that there were so many systems that it was hard to
coordinate them and | am trying to understand why just more systems are being created, but | suppose it is
because they just weren’t adequate.

Director Kleiner

No, that’s a very good question. So actually we moved away from a number of old antiquated systems like
for instance the ADMIN System. We moved away from the reliance on those systems. The AssessPro
Classic CAMA System was upgraded to the AP5. The only tool that was brought in was the Power BI
Dashboards which didn’t exist but those are tied to the CAMA System. Those are extracting data from the

CAMA System. Other tools like what we talked about with the GIS viewer, those are just being upgraded,
they are being developed and improved. They are not additional.

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 12
Alderwoman Lu

Ok but that BI System, is that a created system of is that a turnkey system that we just purchased, is that
something that was developed for us?

Director Kleiner
That is something that was developed, yes.
Alderwoman Lu

One of the questions that was mentioned in the, | guess what | am a little confused about is that back in
June, | think you are saying that AP5 AP Access Code 5 still isn’t functional correct?

Director Kleiner

No, it is functional.

Alderwoman Lu

Oh, we are using that system.

Director Kleiner

Yes.

Alderwoman Lu

OK, | thought we were still working on it. I’m also concerned about the, you know, about the customer
service messages that we have gotten. I’d like to know how customer complaints in Assessing are
tracked?

Director Kleiner

How they are tracked? Well so generally they may be reported to either the Admin Supervisor or to myself.
| am happy to say | haven’t had all that many that have to be tracked. We address the issue in our weekly
meetings and we make improvement along the way. But honestly some of the complaints that | received
early on were more of tools like | mentioned with the development of the comparable sales tool. We had
some complaints by residents on that tool not being user friendly and we are updating that for them. But
other than, we address them head on when we receive any complaint.

Alderwoman Lu

Ok so that was one of the items that was discussed in the audit last year. So | wondered if a system or a
procedure had been established around that. I'll just limit my questions to one other. Why do you think we
are having trouble hiring a Chief Assessor? | mean it’s been awhile hasn’t it?

Director Kleiner

It has. It is not from lack of interviewing; it is not from lack of marketing. So if you look throughout the field,
there could be any number of reasons. Chief Assessors are not in abundance, the Assessing Field itself, it
is difficult to locate people going into the practice. Quite often you will hear Assessors say it is not
something that they said at 5 years old, “I want to grow up and be an Assessor’. So | think there’s a

shortage in the State and that certainly lends to it. But! think there are other concerns that certainly have
been voiced to me by people in the field.

Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 13
Alderwoman Lu

Ok, thank you, that’s all.

Alderman Klee

President Wilshire, you are muted and | have a question.

President Wilshire

Alderman Klee.

Alderman Klee

Thank you. Actually it’s not so much a question, | just wanted to comment that the inspectors, | think | was
one of the first homes that the inspector came through to measure the property and we actually invited him
into our backyard if he had wanted to do so. He said he didn’t need to do it because he could do it by
electronic measuring and electronically, it was completely non-invasive. It was very quick, in and out. I’ve
seen him through the neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, we ran into him as we were walking the dogs, |
think it was on Monday; Sunday or Monday right on Manchester Street, so between Ward 3 and | think he
was popping over to a house in Ward 2 also. It’s completely un-intrusive, noninvasive and it easy for the
homeowners, that’s for certain. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Thank you, Director Kleiner. Thank you, Mr. Miseirvitch.

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN THAT THE JULY 14, 2020, SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD
OF ALDERMEN BE ADJOURNED BY ROLL CALL

A viva voce roll call was taken to adjourn the Board of Aldermen meeting which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza,

Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws,

Alderman Cleaver, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire

15

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 8:05 p.m.

Attest: Susan K. Lovering, City Clerk

Special Board of Aldermen
Assessing Department
Update

July 14, 2020