Assessor flags nine active lawsuits and budget placeholder for software migration support

Assessor Veil Kovacs presented the assessor's FY27 budget to commissioners and highlighted two items she called "placeholders": ongoing legal expenses tied to nine lawsuits and consultant fees tied to a migration from Simpatico to a new property-tax platform. "There are presently 9 lawsuits," Kovacs said, and asked the board to earmark a reserve in the assessor budget to ensure funding for expected legal expenditures.

Kovacs also described the information-technology transition facing the assessor's office. She said procurement and support conversations with the state and other counties are ongoing and that a consulting placeholder of roughly $135,000 appears in the FY27 ask, with about $100,000 already in reserves from FY26. Commissioners and the treasurer discussed the mechanics of rolling unspent appropriations into next-year funding and whether to use the restricted fund balance to cover implementation costs.

Treasury and budget staff explained that unspent appropriations typically revert to fund balance and are not automatically reserved; the board can, however, vote to use restricted fund balance or otherwise allocate fund carryover for consultant agreements. Commissioners requested an executive session to review litigation specifics before making decisions that would affect the assessor's legal contingency line.