City assessors summarize 2024 revaluation, say data gaps drove corrections and homeowner outreach

City-hired appraisal staff told the City of Franklin Common Council on Aug. 19 that a compressed timeline and incomplete property data from the prior assessor required intensive outreach and corrections during the 2024 revaluation.

The assessors — Scott Elvey and Nicole Tesh of a Green Bay appraisal firm — said they began work in February using partial records and did heavy fieldwork, including door-to-door visits to condominium complexes, to complete the city’s property records. The council voted to receive and place the report on file.

The assessors said commercial records the firm received were “incomplete” and condo sketches and photos were largely missing. Elvey told the council that the team had to recreate many commercial records and update roughly 2,800 condominium records, which he said represent about 20% of the city’s parcels. He described “sales reviews” based on 2023 transactions and corrections where data errors were confirmed.

Why this matters: assessors said accurate and current property records support fair taxation across all taxing jurisdictions and reduce distortions in tax rates. The council and assessors discussed next steps including a shorter summary packet for the 2025 assessment year and making the full 2024 revaluation report available on the city’s assessment web page.

Key details and questions from council members included whether tax increment financing (TIF) values are included in the city’s total assessed value (they are for assessment reporting), how the Department of Revenue (DOR) calculates its “DOR value,” and why the commercial ratio in the sales snapshot looked low. Elvey said the sales study page in the packet used a small snapshot of commercial sales — for example, 11 improved commercial sales in the year studied — which can swing year to year and does not directly set DOR’s final commercial level of assessment.

Assessors described a large volume of resident calls during the interim period when there was no active assessor and said they corrected physical data errors and, in some cases, amended 2023 values where statutory correction procedures allowed. They asked council members to encourage residents to accept brief, five- to ten-minute walk-through inspections that help verify room counts, finished basements and other attributes used in valuation. The firm said owners also may submit photos when they cannot meet in person.

The packet included technical ratios: an illustrative sales-study ratio for residential of about 94.49% and a commercial snapshot of about 45.28% (a limited-sales-year snapshot), and an overall example ratio of about 80.69% — figures Elvey described as “a snapshot” using 2023 sales compared to 2023 assessed values and not the post-revaluation 2024 assessments. The assessors said they will publish a shorter summary for the 2025 assessment year that uses 2024 sales to show current levels of assessment.

Council members asked about neighborhood delineations used for mass appraisal. The firm said it had consolidated roughly 167 previously catalogued “neighborhoods” into about 15 broader groupings to ensure adequate comparison bases for land modeling and market analysis. Elvey said the team drove the city to view areas “like a buyer” and grouped neighborhoods by similar features, amenities and school boundaries.

The report and council discussion also noted the firm’s outreach at specific condominium communities (for example, Tuckaway Shores) where assessors had notified owners by letter and were conducting walkthroughs; the firm estimated early-day access rates between roughly 25% and 50% for the first day of visits and said it planned additional visits to complete data collection. The assessors said they do not perform code or building inspections — they verify property characteristics and measurements relevant to valuation.

Council action: Alderman motioned to receive and place the assessors’ annual review on file; the motion passed unanimously.

Ending note: assessors said they do not expect the high volume of prior-year corrections to continue and emphasized that accurate, current records will stabilize future assessments and make tax rates across jurisdictions more equitable.