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City assessor: $76 million added to tax roll after backlog cleanup; full reassessment would cost up to $1 million
Summary
City Assessor reported the assessments office added over $76 million in taxable value after digitizing records, hiring staff and running a data-verification program; the office said a full citywide reassessment could cost $700,000–$1,000,000 and provoke many lawsuits.
The city’s assessment office told the City Council it has added more than $76,000,000 in taxable value to the municipal roll over the past year after tackling a backlog of property records, digitizing files and hiring new staff. The assessor said the workwas driven by a data-verification program and vendor support and that the result would, without any tax-rate increase, increase collections by roughly $500,000 next year.
"Over the past year, we've added over 76,000,000 in taxable value to the roll," the City Assessor said, noting the office has already processed about three-quarters of records through a new verification effort. The presentation said the city spent roughly $120,000 for vendor and staff support to clear the backlog and modernize records, and that the effort has improved accuracy across residential and commercial categories.
The assessor described a multi-step grievance process for property owners and encouraged anyone who doubts their assessment to come forward between May and the grievance date. He also described the use of aerial and street-level imagery plus automated checks to flag discrepancies: "any property we see greater than a 25% variance ... we're going to investigate that," he said.
Council members asked about a possible citywide reassessment. The assessor said a full revaluation would be expensive and disruptive: "For a revaluation project for the full city ... probably talking about 700,000 to 1,000,000 dollars," he said, and warned it could trigger many property appeals. He urged the council to weigh distributional impacts, noting a reassessment can shift tax burden among residential and commercial properties.
The assessor said next steps include finishing the verification run, following up with owners where the office finds large variances and continuing outreach about exemptions and the grievance process. The council did not take action on reassessment at the meeting; commissioners said they wanted more modeling before making any decision.
