Special Board of Aldermen 7-14-2020 Page 4
Kim Kleiner, Director of Administrative Services
Good evening and thank you very much, Madam President, Members of the Board of Aldermen, Members
of the Board of Assessors who have joined us. | am here this evening with Nick Miseirvitch who is the
manager of Infrastructure for the Information Technology Team. We are delighted to give you an update on
what has happened in Assessing since September, which was our last update to you.
If acceptable with the Board, | would like to share my screen for a PowerPoint Presentation.
President Wilshire
That’s fine.
Director Kleiner
So it’s hard to believe that it has been since September since we were last here. But last September when
we joined you, we really focused on five key areas of improvement. We talked about transparency and
customer service. We had implemented changes like putting everyone’s property record card on-line. We
instituted the Assessing Monthly Monitor, how we started televising Board of Assessor Meetings. We
talked about data collection and how we were now issuing sales verification letters to residents to gain
more information from the residents directly. We talked about Assessment Change Notification Letters that
were being issued. We talked about procedures and communication and weekly staff meetings that had
been introduced and Departmental Updates that were given at each Board of Assessor Meeting. We
talked about how Assessors were completing field logs and mileage reports, how we were dealing with
property data accuracy.
Now data inspectors and assessors were now including all activity into our CAMA System and we talked
about how we were going to begin a software update mainly to AP5, an update to our CAMA System which
Mr. Miseirvitch is going to talk about in greater detail later. And we thank him, he’s our expert, that’s for
sure. So after we met, in October, David Cornell of Comell Consultants completed an audit of the
Assessing Department. And this is important going forward, because this really informs you of a lot of the
recommendations that the Assessing Department is looking to implement. Why we feel that his audit is
very important to us is David Cornell is by far an expert in the world of Assessing. So not only has he been
an Assistant Director up at the New Hampshire DRA; a well-respected Assessor in Manchester, but he is a
Senior National Instructor for the International Association of Assessing Officers. He holds a number of
very important and key appraisal licenses and many communities throughout the country look to him for
Assessing Assistance and for some very important audits when they are looking at how to improve their
functions.
We have had the pleasure, since October, of dealing with Mr. Cornell. When he conducted his Assessment
he looked at the visit history of all our accounts. He looked at our Building Permits and Property Record
Card Changes. He did an audit of 100 random sold properties. He came up with this really eight key
recommendations. And these are important and this is what is really forming as our structure as we look
for improvements in our Assessing Department.
So — Complete a Full Measure & List. We knew this. This was back in the management audit earlier in
2019. We had looked at this. We know this is now underway and we will talk a little bit more about that.
Develop a Long Range Schedule. When we say that we are talking about inspections, we are talking about
all the work that Assessing has to do; sales verifications, and how we not only manage the day-to-day
activities of Assessing but how we perform inspections for Building Permit and things of that sort.
Record All Inspections in AssessPro. So when Mr. Cornell performed his audit, what he found was not all
of the assessors were recording their activity within our CAMA System. When an Assessor goes out and
visits a property really they are visiting a property for a number of reasons. They are performing an
