Unringing the bell
Assessor’s office catches “Mega” mistake
They were almost there. County Assessor Jody Henning and her staff were just about ready to close the tax rolls and get the results turned in to the state on time — a huge task considering the mess she and her team had to unravel when she took over the job just two years ago — when they caught an error.
The Assessor’s Office had recently started using newer Megabyte software to process its work, but spotted a glitch that required them to re-run the rolls. “We had to unring the bell,” Henning said. Two of her team spotted the error when reviewing the results. Apparently the software’s calculation process was written based on a positive rate of inflation, which currently doesn’t exist in the present recessionary economic climate. Factoring a negative rate of inflation caused the program to round up, instead of down, essentially leading to an overbilling, even though relatively minor.
When Henning pointed out the problem to Megabyte, their response apparently was something to the effect of “can you live with it?” Henning thought about the question, but after consulting with some fellow assessors in other counties, she determined that, no, she couldn’t. “It wasn’t much. Maybe it would have amounted to $17,000 countywide. We’re talking a penny or so,” she explained. “But it wouldn’t have been legal according to state law, and in principle it would have been wrong.”
Megabyte is currently working on fixing the problem and the rolls were being re-run earlier this week. Henning said she has an application for an extension in the mail, but is pushing towards meeting the state’s July 1 deadline and hopes that filing the extension won’t be necessary.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” she said. “I don’t want to give any undue tax breaks, but I also don’t want to see anyone overcharged, even if it’s just by a penny or so.” Notice of assessed values should go out by the end of July. Henning pointed out that you’ll probably only see one if your property has declined in value. If your property has no change (other than its inflation factor), you will not get a notice.
Lots of county property owners will, though. According to Henning, her appraisal staff has already lowered at least 4,000 properties and she expects that may lead to as many as 5,000 notices being sent out.
Once the tax rolls are done, during July Henning said she plans to start setting a calendar to begin hearing assessment appeals applications for those taxpayers who filed their application form prior to November 30, 2009. Some of that work will include ongoing appeals by Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
According to Henning, the County and MMSA have reached agreement on some of the assessments, but the Ski Area still disagrees on others, though specifics as to those disagreements are still pending.
In terms of the number of the appeal applications, however, Henning is pretty upbeat. Of all the properties her office assessed last year, Henning said they received about 400 applications for appeals, about half of which were from MMSA. “That means we only got about 200 private property home appeals, and I think that shows a lot of appreciation for our work,” Henning opined.
“We were proactive … talking to the media and informing the public about what were doing. We asked [the public] to let us do our work before filing an application, and I think they did.”
This year will for the first time mean a filing fee ($26.75) for applications, which Henning said doesn’t do much to help her office, but does help cover processing costs in the Clerk/Recorder’s Office.
Henning credits her staff for their work, which she openly admits includes putting up with her need for accountability and customer service. “I’m pretty stubborn,” she said. “I know what I want for the Office and where we are going, and I hold my ground.”
Henning, who’s worked in some capacity or other with all of her predecessors over the past 30 years, replaced embattled Assessor Jim Lovett two years ago. The first thing she did was start changing how things had been done previously to suit her liking, and that included catching up on a backlog of 1,000 properties that had been languishing in the “to be assessed” pile, as well as reconciling tax bills for things that had been built as much as 3 years earlier.
“We started out at a deficit, but the staff really pulled up a lot of time,” Henning said. “We went from being 1,000 properties behind the eight ball to not only clearing those off, but also doing a completely new assessment and closing the tax rolls on time. That’s a huge accomplishment.”
Henning said she’s rearranged the flow of work to get assessments as accurate as possible the first time around. “I pushed hard to limit the roll corrections,” she recalled. A more accurate roll, she said, means quicker turnaround to the Collector’s Office and ultimately better figures on which to base budgets.
“We could just put in a figure and say we’ll go back and fix it later if we have to, but so many parts of the County look to the Assessor’s Office for accuracy,” Henning said. “Real numbers mean no surprises. School districts, fire districts run on real tight budgets and hard numbers can mean the difference between layoffs or not. These are peoples’ lives and jobs that are on the line.”
It may not be a perfect process (yet), but agree with her or not, Henning walks the walk, literally. She may be one of the few county assessors that actually goes out into the field and helps with appraisals to make sure the tax rolls aren’t late. And that’s just fine with a very “boots-on-the-ground” Henning. “I’d rather be out looking at pretty houses,” she quipped.
