Special Bd. of Aldermen — 07/22/2019 Page 5
recommendation of the Management Audit, we felt pretty strongly that it needed to be done. And no, we aren’t
saying that you want to undertake every 5 years or every 10 years. But maybe the City looks at that and
figures out what it thinks is most reasonable to keep our data and our systems accurate.
Alderman Tencza
Thank you so if someone and you may have said this before, if someone refuses for the inspector to come into
their house, there is nothing the City can do about that?
Ms. Kleiner
No.
Alderman Tencza
OK.
Alderman Dowd
So question, the bonds is an item not to exceed $1.3 million are we basing that on a proposal?
Ms. Kleiner
We are.
Alderman Dowd
OK so we don’t anticipate having to spend any more than the $1.3 million.
Ms. Kleiner
So | want to say that when CFO Griffin and | were undertaking the management audit, we asked for a quote, a
proposal on this item to get understanding of what we would be asking the City to undertake. So that was
based on February of 2019. | am hopeful that | will not have to come back to you.
Alderman Dowd
Thank you very much. | will open the public hearing for testimony. Anyone who wants to speak in favor,
please come up to the microphone and state your name and address.
Testimony in Favor
Laurie Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. A couple of things. | have some concerns about the four-year time frame
on this revaluation with a list and measure. | would love to see it done in 3 years and certainly not 5 so | was
glad to hear tonight it was 4. A couple of my concerns are that the market is running high. We lost 5 points on
the equalization ratio last year in a year that we were equalizing to one. We came down to 94.9%. Itis very
possible that this year we could lose 10 points on that ratio and we will be equalizing property at 85%, maybe
87 after that first year.
You know you'd like to think that the market will correct itself, | hope it does. But if it doesn’t and it runs hot,
you are going to have properties that are pretty far off. When you couple it with the miscue and data that
hasn’t been captured over 30 years, | think you could have some pretty devastating increases. That concerns
me a great deal. | would love to know if this State has any way to phase in high increases on properties.
