Board of Aldermen 11-13-2018 Page 17
custom cabinet, double sink, double oven, it got an average rating too. It is all the same assessor. So |
am now looking at pictures going, “What does it take, what are the guidelines in there”. | did the same
with bathrooms. I'd find a beautiful tiled bathroom, double sink, very lovely, gets an average rating. |
find a bathroom that almost looks identical gets an excellent. Ok, that all goes on the card and it is
supposed to make a difference in valuation but I’m finding in general that bathrooms and kitchens and
basements can raise valuations when you are looking at permits by $3,000.00. Well on a $400,000.00
why are we even bothering to waste our time at that, you are talking about raising the assessment
$60.00. Really when you got out and sell that house, you are finding the valuations are much higher.
That is where the people who are actually involved in a sale are paying so much more and we are just
missing it. My husband and | spent a lot of time two and a half weeks ago looking at property cards.
There is something not right in the software in our opinion. It just, the yard items will be on the back of
the card and when you flip it over many cards, the yard items are not getting into the assessment at the
value that is on the back of the card by a lot. | don’t know why. Some of them go on, a lot of them
don’t. | just don’t understand it. Then the parameters within the database, | don’t know if it is because
we haven't calibrated that software in a long time. | don’t know if it is because we haven't changed
tables out in a long time. | still don’t have answers and | don’t understand how permits are captured.
There is just no documentation on it and I’m learning today that it is something that | might have to
access under Right to Know. | have to use an attorney to do that because | don’t know how to ask the
questions. But also it is quite possible that how permits are used, is not available for the public to know.
It seems silly and it seems like we should be able to know that but it is possible it isn’t.
So all | can tell you is what we see and | printed $400.00 of permit cards, I’ve got 400 cards now. I’m
looking at a good sample size and they just don’t make a lot of sense. It is just you know disturbing and
| think somehow we have to figure out what are the ways that we can do things better to treat these
properties more equally. The lack of policy and procedure, in my opinion, is a huge problem. Not
having a readable card for the public to understand their property card is very difficult. And not having
anyone in the assessor's office who can explain it, they don’t know what all those variables are. And
somehow | think when you punch in the buttons those variables are playing part of the role. The rating
of fixtures, you know I’d love to see the abating process in this city include not just sales data but
comparable in your neighborhood. Because you are going to find when you use comparable in your
neighborhood — my husband and | looked at comparable in our neighborhood that fly under the radar,
very comparable to our house. But they have just never been brought up; well when we compare
ourselves we are, the price of our home would be around $500,000.00 to $510,000.00 on the rating
with equal houses in our neighborhood. And | mean really good comparisons, if | use sales data I’m
going to come in closer to $570 or $580. And probably with a dispute in abating trying to make it
higher, that’s a big difference, $70,000.00 at $21.00 is $1,400.00 a year plus the increase you get in
your taxes over 5 years, I’m talking $8,000.00, $9,000.00 difference potentially that I’m going to be
paying because | bought the house 5 years ago and was sales adjusted. And the house that is sitting
there for 15 years our 20 years has pulled permits, stayed low, not captured, is down in the mud. They
can’t catch up to me and | can’t down to them, | can’t get there, that’s the problem. And that is what
frustrates the public, | think.
We just really need to do a better job and | think there has been a real lack of transparency. It has
been a really grueling process. The other thing | want to let you know, you shouldn’t have to come
forward with an issue and have your reputation suffer so much as much as my husband’s and my
reputation suffered. VWWhen we addressed these issues and put our package together for KRT we
always took the position that we wanted our valuation lowered to meet the expectations of our
neighbors. We used comparable in our neighborhood. We never requested that you raise people’s
assessments; we requested that we just be brought in line with our neighborhood. Unknown to me
when KRT decided to do a second and a third view of Berkeley Street, Berkley Street got reviewed 3
times. We were not aware of that and it was only Berkeley Street that took this second and third view.
A handful of homes, I’m going to say 10 properties were changed, 6 were raised again, some of them
pretty high. Steve had mentioned to me when | spoke to him that he had fully expected people to be
