Davis County assessor seeks larger modeling contract, plans in‑house transition; appeal with Lagoon moves to state hearing

Assessor Andy Hansen told the Davis County Budget Committee that the assessor's office will issue a request for proposals this week to replace its outside modeling contractor and that the office aims to transition modeling work in‑house by 2028.

Hansen said the county has paid as much as $90,000 in recent years for outside modeling services and that staff have budgeted a conservative increase to avoid returning to the committee midyear. "So not too much has changed on our budget for this year. We are putting out the biggest 1 and the most important for our office is our modeling services," Hansen said. He added the office plans to expand the contract's scope to include training support for county staff.

The nut graf: the assessor is asking for a modest budget increase to cover an expanded contract and higher training costs while pursuing longer‑term savings by building an internal modeling team. Hansen said staffers Austin Crozet and Jeff Milfield are slated to take over modeling responsibilities over the next several years, with outside firms retained only as consultants after the transition.

Hansen described the rationale as operational: in‑house capacity would let the office update and validate valuation models more frequently, reduce end‑of‑year rushes and lower the risk of overlooked errors. He said the RFP will specify that the contractor provide training to county modelers and that the office expects to post the solicitation by the end of the week.

On budget figures, Hansen said the county previously paid $75,000 annually for modeling services in earlier years, spent $90,000 last year, and is budgeting extra contingency this year in case market bids exceed past amounts. He said the office added roughly $20,000 as a buffer when preparing the budget request.

Hansen also told the committee the assessor's office must cover recurring continuing education for appraisers under the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice and similar requirements. He said the office already has $9,700 in the professional training line and is asking for an additional $2,300—bringing the training budget to about $12,000—because a large share of staff will need biennial updates next year.

On staffing, Hansen said the office recently lost one certified residential appraiser to the tax commission and has reorganized some positions to cover the vacancy while recruiting. He described an internal test combining two positions that initially appeared to cost about $16,000 annually but was recalculated to approximately $2,500 in ongoing expense; the county's human resources staff said they will follow up with budgeting staff to confirm. Hansen said the office currently has one trainee in real property and one in personal property.

Hansen reported progress on IT and process changes: the office completed a conversion to the Puma software platform, which he said saves about $65,000 in software fees, and has begun pushing values from Puma into the county's CoreTax property tax system to streamline work for the tax administration staff. He said staff who worked on a similar conversion in a neighboring county were hired to help anticipate common problems.

Hansen also updated the committee on a longstanding appeal with a taxpayer identified as "Lagoon." He said the assessor's office completed its appraisal and, after the taxpayer's longtime attorney died, agreed with the taxpayer's new counsel to skip the local Board of Equalization hearing and proceed directly to a state hearing because the matter was likely to proceed to that forum anyway. "We ordered an appraisal for ourselves to go up against. They have an MAI appraiser ... that's kind of the pinnacle and so we went and got ours and we're gonna sit down and show them where the value is," Hansen said. He said the exact tax dollars at issue were "not specified" during the meeting but described the amount as significant. Hansen said if the assessor prevails at the state hearing there will be no additional tax revenue to collect retroactively because the taxpayer already paid under protest; if the office loses, the county would refund any overpayment.

No formal motions or votes were taken during the assessor's budget report. Committee members asked clarifying questions about certification cycles and the timing of the RFP and expressed interest in being kept informed about the staffing and software transitions.

Ending: Hansen said the office expects to finalize the RFP and continue work on the Puma/CoreTax push in coordination with the controller and information systems staff, and he reiterated the office's target to shift most modeling work in‑house by 2028.