Search

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 9

So quite often you will find this resident counter here has several different computers on it which is for residents
to access information. But if you have several residents that are also filling out applications at the time, it’s really
not sufficient. And if they have questions about information that they are meeting staff, quite often you might find
that they go out into the hallway and talk at a table out in the hallway to get some privacy.

So we are really looking at how we redevelop the area, what the general flow of the workload is so you generally
will have more employees that may need to access the vault where the property record cards and things are kept
than others. So is it really the staff that’s all the way over to the left-hand side of the office or is it the staff that is
closest on the right-hand side? You see the double door entrances | think we have at least initially talked about,
it may be more friendly to our customers to our residents to use those double doors for access into the
Department than to actually have them end up in an assessor’s office, and really they are not used. So this is an
area we are looking at. There’s a conference room table in the former Chief Assessor's Office; you'll find a set of
plans down there that building has drawn up for us and we are really looking at just our initial conversations on
what are the needs of the individual employees? What do they see as their needs? And then we will talk about a
more strategic plan moving forward. And we certainly thank Risk & Building for their help with this.

Where we are: March 7'" the Management Audit Report was presented to you. It’s been 38 working days since
the audit was presented; 14 working days with an acting Administrative Director. 14 days. We have received 43
e-mails, held two hour meetings with residents, 7 full staff meetings, 8 individual meetings and 4 Board of
Assessor Meetings. We continue to have multiple requests for large amounts of data, property files and
documents. You certainly saw the load that the staff has upon their plate when they spoke earlier. | think one of
our goals moving forward is to create some real sustainable change. But there’s a way and there’s a process to
do this. So this isn’t that | created, this is something that we used actually when we developed the plans in my
prior organization. In order to have sustainable culture change, you really have to communicate a clear reason
why the change is necessary. Otherwise you are not going to get the employees who rely on you to buy into it.
You need to start small and you need to scale, you can’t just run out in haste and start making changes. It will
not work. You need to design for the short-term goals and also your long-term goals.

Everyone wants to see immediate results, we get that. We think we’ve made some improvements already but
we are asking for your time. We need to use positive reinforcement and that means publicly as well. So | am
down there every day with a staff that works incredibly hard; that wants to create change. But we need to show
the support in order to do that. And we need to realign some conformance management systems. We need to
look at management and | think we have kind of indicated this when we spoke about the Management Audit, not
just of assessing, but really look at some management of other departments within City Government as well.
Sustaining change is not achieved through a one-time exercise, but instead through the adoption of new
management practices that need to be continuously nurtured and reinforced. Creating sustainable cultural
change provides the foundation for organizations to improve, transform and compete. And | can say this; after 14
days as acting and 38 days since the Management Audit, | have no doubt, no doubt that our current Assessing
Department will rise to the challenge. | can take any questions.

President Wilshire

Great presentation. Thank you so much and | agree, the people down there are working hard, everyone wants to
do a good job for the residents and | applaud you and the staff down there for stepping up and wanting to do
better and making changes that are going to be positive for them and the City. And | also neglected to mention
that the Mayor did call me and say he couldn’t be here, he was at a Holocaust Memorial this evening at Riv.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 10

Alderman Clemons

Thank you for all 3 of you for coming this evening and kind of giving us an idea of what you’ve been working on
the last few months and what you are kind of day to day. | think it shows that you have a very busy office; you
have a lot to do. | truly appreciate you taking the time out of your evening to come here. It was never a question
in my mind as far as the — first off all the amount of work that you do and secondly the quality of work that you do.
| think it’s always been good. This just shows that and backs up what Ms. Kleiner said which is your time can
weather this storm and get through this.

And make this an even better office really than it already is. And | really want to say that I, in all of my time in City
Government, | don’t think I’ve ever seen a point when one area of City Government has been so, so many
resources and so much time has been put towards it. And | think for anyone to say that somehow we are not
doing enough in this area after tonight, | guess they just don’t see it, they just don’t see what’s in front of them.
Because to me, what this proves to me is that there was a problem, and we’ve addressed it and we are going to
continue to address it until it is completely solved. And so | don’t need any more evidence, | don’t. Just keep up
the good work.

President Wilshire

For the record, Alderman Dowd has joined us at 8:00.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

Yes thank you. First of all thank you for coming this evening and for your presentation. | am not going to repeat
Alderman Clemons’ comments but | would agree with them. | think all of us know how hard you work down there
and we also know that there’s just a lot of paperwork. You are under the gun to make sure your numbers are
correct and it is very detail oriented and requires much of your focus and time and that you are committed to
making sure that it is being done correctly.

| also think that having this presentation this evening and having you here to maybe make what you do and
what’s gone on in those 38 days more public goes a long way to letting the residents of the city understand
where you are going and what you are looking forward to doing. And | think what’s happened in the past several
months has certainly made all of us a bit uncomfortable and wondered what is going on. But | think sometimes
when those things happen, and I’m saying this as someone who worked for a school district that was under a
federal audit for many years; when those things happens it makes you kind of stop and say “Well we’ve been
doing business as usual and we’ve always done what we thought was the best, but maybe it’s time to take a step
back and say wow, are there things we could differently? Not because what we are doing is necessarily bad or
incorrect or wrong but it will just make what we do a better quality product”.

And to Ms. Kleiner’s point, just more understandable to the public, because | think my frustration and not recently
but the things I’ve heard from people in terms of their frustrations has been “I can’t understand this and | feel like
a fool that | can’t understand my own assessment data”. So | think anything we can do to just make the public
feel more comfortable in accessing their own data and understanding it also goes a long way towards people
feeling like we are all just working together. So thank you again and thanks for all your efforts, not only currently
but in going forward to look at where things can be modified and adjusted to improve the quality of your hard
work and what your product is.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 11

Alderman Klee

Thank you and again I’m just going to say ditto and ditto. It’s true. Coming forward and transparency is
something that is truly important for the residents. | came knowing what | Knew and having a million questions
and thank you because you really answered all of them. The only question | have and | feel guilty even asking a
question but on this sheet here, when you use that as a check list does that then equate out to kind of a grade or
does that help you to create the assessment in general?

Mr. Turgiss

In general, correct.
Alderman Klee

So like for instance if | saw the roof structure was a gable and the exterior walls were wood shingled or vinyl
siding or something like that, each of those would equate out to how you would do the assessment and so on.
So this check list, if you are a new person or a very seasoned person, you are going to come in basically within, |
know some things are subjective, but you are going to come in with a close assessment to each other. And |
think that’s wonderful and thank you for sharing this because | think this helps us go a long way.

And the only other question | have was a concern that’s been brought up over and over again is the permitting
process. | know you can’t force your way into somebody’s home and | know not all permits even if they said it
was a $25,000.00 would be a $25,000.00; it could actually be an actually $50,000.00 increase in the assessment.
Is there any way that you in doing your job and the people giving the permit know that the information that is on
there is accurate without going out there? If it’s outside thing | know we can look at GIS.

Mr. Turgiss

Right, what we do is if we do not gain access to the home is we refer to the Building Department, get what we
can for plans. We view the inspections that they have done, speak with them, see if they can give us any
information on it and unless we get in that’s about the best we can do.

Alderman Klee

And | appreciate it so thank you. You really did answer all of my questions and | appreciate everything that you
guys are doing and the rest of the staff that is not here. Thank you.

Alderman Caron

Yes thank you, | took would like to echo , thank you for coming. | Know this was a lot of work for you to put
together. A couple of things; | think it is great Ms Kleiner that you are working with the staff wno have been there
a long time to get their input, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent and that you are taking baby steps and not
jumping into a hole that you might not be able to get out of. And finally the one thing | think is great is you are
redesigning that entrance area. How many times did | walk people down there and never know what was
happening and where you could put people while they were waiting. So | think that’s really great and keep up the
good work; don’t let the negativity affect you because you all do a great job. | know because I’ve worked with

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 12

Louise in the past on different things. So | think you are coming a long way and hopefully you'll give us an
update in six months or something like that. That way we have some transparency in that you are moving
forward, but | was very pleased with your presentation. Please do not use that blue paper ever again, | was
going blind. Thank you.

Alderman Jette

At the risk of being the lone dissident voice here, | do think you are heading in the right direction. But! don’t
know any of you personally, so this is nothing personal, but | represent a Ward and people who have concerns. |
think you understand that it is so important that our tax payers feel that they are being treated fairly in comparison
to everybody else in town; that they are not being discriminated against one way or the other. Or that somebody
is getting a deal that they are not getting. So we have to be very transparent in this whole process and we have
to make sure that whatever questions people have, that they are answered.

A lot of | guess allegations is the safest way to put it at this point have been made about mistakes that have been
made in the Assessing office. My constituents have pointed out some, some were made by KRT. But egregious
errors that hopefully are being corrected; but whatever the situation is, it is not something that happened
yesterday it has happened over a period of time. | think elimination of the Chief Assessor's position is not going
to, by itself, cure any of these problems that you have there. Meaning no disrespect but you people have been
working there while all of this happened. So my concern | think that you are heading in the right direction; my
concern is that you Ms. Kleiner, of your own admission, you are not an assessing, you have no background in
assessing, you are walking into this thing new.

You are adding some management, but I’m concerned you know we had a Chief Assessor and these problems
occurred and now we have no Chief Assessor, so we have nobody supervising the Assessors except a non-
assessor, someone who is not, you are doing your best, but you are not familiar with the whole skill or art or
science of assessing. | am wondering whether or not you feel with all the other duties you are going to have as
Administrative Services Director, whether or not we are not asking too much of you? Whether or not there
should be someone with an Assessing background that should be there to supervise the Assessing department.
And | hope as you go on, if you discover that that’s the case, that we can depend on you being forthright enough
to say “Yeah we need some help here, we need some expertise that we don’t have right now and we should
add”.

President Wilshire

Did you want to respond to that Ms Kleiner?

Ms. Kleiner

| would and thank you. | mean | truly understand your concern. Here’s where | would like to disagree just
respectfully a little. You had a knowledgeable Assessor, what lacked within the Department was some clear
management. That was shown clearly in the Management Audit.

Alderman Jette

I’m sorry | didn’t hear you.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 13

Ms. Kleiner

What was clearly shown in the Management Audit was you had a Certified Assessing Specialist right? You had
an expert. What you didn’t have was clear management and we got in a situation. What makes a good manager
is someone who realizes where to go to get the information they need to make decisions. So | come from the
Cable Business, | could not make a piece of wire if my life depended on it. Couldn’t tell you what went into it; but
| participated in managing the efficiency of production lines. Why? Because | knew enough and learned from
great mentors, let me put it that way, I’ve had excellent mentors along my way, how to make solid decisions and
reach out for the best information to make those decisions. | truly believe that is what you need here. Am | going
to be on the phone to different assessors to different municipalities to KRT, yes | think you can Mr. Tozier. I’m
not saying that’s not going to happen; they are the experts. There is a wealth of information out there, you have
to be able to find it. We have a State DRA that leads the State in this process. | am going to jump in and take
the classes myself and see where this comes up with. | understand some of the concern about adding some
other departments and divisions on to what is currently, | actually have more of a background in those other
departments and divisions than | do this one, which | think will help a great deal. But | can promise you that if |
feel, if | ever feel that my effectiveness or that | am hurting the City or the value to our residents in any way, | will
let you know. | will let the Mayor know immediately.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

| just want to say thank you to all 3 of you for coming here today and really giving us a breakdown of the
department. I’m one of those that haven’t always thought the best of the department but | know that it is in good
hands right now. | appreciate the fact that you gave us the audit, you did tell us about it, the whole 9 yards, told
us where you felt that we needed the help in the department and also told us where you are going to go with this
help. How are we going to get to where you want to be with this. So for me, | am very happy about tonight and |
appreciate all that you and your team is doing to make Nashua great and more so | can’t wait for 101. I’m going
to be there.

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you, like everybody else thank you for coming. But | for one always love it when a new Sheriff comes to
town because that means you recognize something has happened and you need to fix it. In this case, the first
way to fix something is to identify that you had a problem and it seems like we have. That is going to a long way
to give us a better service, particularly in all departments but with assessing. And | myself am willing to give you
that time and would like to hear back maybe at a later date, to come back and give us a report of the progress.
And | think that’s what the people would like to see. | undoubtedly think that we are correct; we are on the right
track now since we have identified what could have been a potential problem and we are looking to fix it.

The other thing I’m extremely excited about is in your presentation you mentioned the software and computers. |
would like a public statement, | am not a geek, but | do understand how much computers make allegedly our
lives easier. But when you get into your end of it I’m sure probably a large percentage of your work is data
entering and working. | know the City has been under the gun for 25 years with something else, a lot of
infrastructure has fallen off the wayside. We look at pipes and different other things and schools and we are
looking at potholes and roads and paving programs and everything else like that. But the computer system is
equally, in my opinion, equal part of that infrastructure. And | am so glad that you have addressed that, you are
bringing up looking to get the different components to talk to.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 14

Coming from the Fire Department | know the benefit to have what is being presented to the Incident Commander
from the information in the Assessor's Office that could be relayed to the fire scene, it has the potential of saving
lives. And it can communicate to the fire fighters before even leaving the station have a fair idea that it will come
up in the MDT in the truck, the Motor Data Terminal, they'll have an idea what type of structure/fire they are
actually going to. So | see with your looking at that, that’s going to be huge. And so | think this is the beginning
sort to speak and | am willing to, let’s lay back and see how it goes. And again if you can come back with a little
report to tell us how it’s going, | think that’s what the tax payers see. | think they are going to recognize that we
saw an issue, we corrected it and we are working to get it better. So thank you.

Alderman Schmidt

Thank you so much for this. It’s clear now what needs to be done. | know that after the re-assessment | heard a
lot from constituents about what was wrong and it was pretty clear that something needed to be done. We've
heard it here from people who came up to ask for help. | think that’s exactly what you are offering. It is not the
assessors that are the problem; what the problem is that there was no organization, there was no process.
Everything was waiting for you | think and I’m so glad this is happening, thank you very much.

Alderman Clemons

| wanted to just emphasize one point in particular, a policy that | agree with. Ms. Kleiner you mentioned that you
put in place the written request form for whatever it may be and you will get back to the citizen in 5 business
days. And I’ve got to tell you, that follows the Right To Know Law. And there’s a reason that the Right To Know
Law was written the way it was. Because if you, Nashua is very lucky that we have a large staff, generally
speaking in various departments when you consider just different divisions. When you look at a small little town
though let’s say, | don’t pick one. They are not going to have an Assessing Department with 5 or 6 people
working in it. They are going to have maybe 1 person. So the Right To Know Law was written in a way that
allows the community to best tailor their ways that they can respond to individual’s requests and gives them a
right, gives them a time-frame to be able to do that. | think that utilizing that law to the degree that it gives you the
latitude to be able to answer everybody’s question in an appropriate manner and a way that is going to get the
information across to them so that they understand what is being presented to them | think is not only a good
practice, but it’s a best practice.

So that is a policy, as far | am concerned, that | will 100% support and might even be good to implement in other
departments where there may be you know where they might have that lack of being able to fulfill some of these
requests that come in. Because to me, in my profession, nothing is better than getting something in writing
because you can respond exactly to what the request is, everybody is on the same page, if you will. That to me
is a great what to move forward. So thank you for doing that and | think it acknowledges the balance between
the staff and what the demands there and the public and their right to know.

Alderman Klee

There was one item that | did forget to ask and it was kind of mentioned. You’ve done tremendous work in 14
and 38 days so thank you for that. And then coming and giving us this information and so on; can we expect,
you know I’m looking at your timeline here, maybe sometime in August? At that point you said you are during a
lull and you are going to be starting that new project. Can we get kind of an update as to how things went with
the billing and the abatements, is that too much to ask? And I’m sorry to put you on the hot seat right at the
moment, but | think the public would appreciate that.

Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 15

Ms. Kleiner

So | don’t want to speak for the Mayor but | would imagine that after our July conversation there will be some
conversation with the Board around a bonding request and some need for some additional information to the
Board right around that time. So | will certainly discuss that with the Mayor, but | would see that as foreseeable.

Alderman Klee
Thank you.
President Wilshire

Anything else? Seeing none, thank you very much for being here this evening. We appreciate your presentation
and your time and your hard work. Have a good night. Thank you.

ADJOURNMENT

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO ADJOURN
MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was declared adjourned at 8:22 p.m.

Attest: Judith Boileau, Deputy City Clerk

CITY OF NASHUA
ASSESSING DEPARTMENT

www.nashuanh.gov/ assessing
DATE OF VISIT / ACCOUNT #: /

REASON FOR VISIT FROM ASSESSOR’S OFFICE:
Building permit follow-up for assessment purposes; data collected, no
need to call. é
Building permit follow-up for assessment purposes. Need additional
information/inspection. Please contact this office.

Verification of sale. Please contact this office.
Ongoing construction. We will visit again at a later date. No need to call.
Property review cycle. Please contact this office.

> Bele bo

Other:

Comments:

Nashua Assessor’s Office
Phone: 603-589-3040
Mon-Fri 8 AM to 5 PM

Email: assesshelp@nashuanh.gov

Construction will be considered 100% complete, as of April 1st, if
no response is received to this notice.

For interior inspections, a person 18 years or older must be present.
Thank You

City of Nashua

Assessing Department

City Hall (603) 589-3040
229 Main St. » PO Box 2019 FAX (603) 589-2079
Nashua, NH 03061-2019 E-Mail: att teas

Map and Lot

Account Number

Property Address

Initials & Code

PARTIAL CONSTRUCTION COMPLETION REPORT

Property Address:

Owner:

Account #:

Map & Lot #:

Date:

Appraiser:

Construction Phase
1 0

Item % of Total | Cumulative % |) % Complete Complete %
Excavation 2.0 2.0 0.0
Forms Set 2.0 4.0 0.0
Foundation 8.0 12.0 0.0
Basement Floor 2.5 14.5 0.0
Joists Set 2.0 16.5 0.0
Subfloor 2.0 18.5 0.0
Framed 7.0 25.5 0.0
Sheathed 5.0 30.5 0.0
Roof Shingled 40 34.5 0.0
Windows Set 4.0 38.5 0.0
Siding On 5.0 43.5 0.0
Heating Installed 6.0 49.6 0.0
Plumbing Roughed in 6.0 55.5 0.0
Wiring Roughed In 3.0 58.5} | 0.0
Insulated 2.5 61.0 0.0
Walls Roughed In 2.0 63.0 0.0
Walls Finished 5.0 68.0 0.0
Interior Trim & Cabinets 6.0 74.0 0.0
Doors Hung 2.0 76.0 0.0
Wiring Finished 3.0 79.0 0.0
Plumbing Fixtures In 3.0 82.0 0.0
Floors Finished 5.0 87.0 0.0
Finish Hardware 1.0 88.0 0.0
Interior Décor 4.0 92.0 0.0
Outside Painting -3.0 95.0 0.0
_|Water & Sewer Connected 2.0 97.0 0.0
Exterior Concrete Work 3.0 100.0 0.0

Total Percent Complete: 0.0
UC Percent: 100.0%

Comments

Construction Completion Report_4-3-08_ - Copy 4/30/2019