State justifies land assessing practices

By LOHR McKINSTRY
Staff Writer

July 02, 2009 03:28 am

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ELIZABETHTOWN — The deputy director of the State Office of Real Property Services went before the Essex County Board of Supervisors this week to try to justify the statistical models his agency uses to set assessments.

In response to issues raised by lawmakers, agency Deputy Executive Director Victor Mallison said the Computer-Aided Mass Appraisal software they use is capable of adjusting for area property values.

COMPARISONS
Mallison said that when there aren't enough recent sales — usually 250 to 300 — in a municipality, they go outside the community to garner more sales to plug into the software.

That works better when the communities have comparable values, but the State Office of Real Property Services has used Lake George sales for Newcomb assessments and downtown Saratoga Springs sales for Granville.

In both cases, the base communities have far lower property values than those being included.

COMPLEX FORMULA
The process the state agency uses to figure equalization rates — the percentage assessments in a municipality vary from full-market value — is very complex, Mallison said.

"It is such a complicated process, I am just beginning to wrap my head around it."

He said assessors in the region, many of whom were present to show their support for the State Office of Real Property Services, should be congratulated for their work.

State Office Northern Regional Director Robert Aiken said many pieces of information, called "pre-decisional collaboration data," are used in setting equalization rates and are provided to local assessors for discussion.

The equalization rate is one of the pieces that determines the foundation-aid formula for schools, he said, so a low equalization rate means less state aid. It also means reduced STAR, veterans and senior exemptions.

SLOWDOWNS
One problem is that the Computer-Aided Mass Appraisal often has obsolete information, said Supervisor Roby Politi (R-North Elba).

"With the CAMA study, there is a tendency for that data to be out of date — especially today, when there has been a market slowdown. Using sales from Lake Placid three years ago, in my opinion, is not reflective of current market trends."

Scozzafava said he'd heard from Moriah Central School officials that one reason the state wants continual reassessments is to increase the value of a community because that decreases the amount of state aid to schools.

Aiken answered that he wasn't that familiar with school-aid formulas.

COMPUTER MODELS
Mallison did admit that their computer models are designed for urban areas.

"It is frustrating that our models don't work statistically with small communities. I will go back and try to make our statistical models reflect what the local officials see as fair."

Supervisor Ronald Jackson (R-Essex) said they definitely need to change the computer models.

"When your sales drop off to one-quarter of what they normally are and the sales that do take place are reduced from the assessed valuation, how can you justify increasing this particular year when the past year has been a devastating experience to everyone in the real-estate business?"

Aiken blamed local assessors for not telling them sales are dropping.

He said their data is "showing a positive trend" in North Country home sales.

'MAYBE WAIT'
Most of what the State Office of Real Property Services representatives said was challenged by assessment-reform advocate Barry O'Brien of Dannemora.

O'Brien is an opponent of using outside sales for a town's equalization formula.

"We look at it from two different perspectives," O'Brien said. "If you need 300 sales, don't make a change until you get the 300 sales."

Mallison said that if they were to wait for 300 sales in a town where there were 11 sales in three years, such as Keene, they'd wait 90 years.

"Then maybe the assessments don't need to be changed every year. Maybe you should wait," O'Brien said.

So many people wanted to ask questions at the meeting that Jackson, who was chairing the proceeding as a Ways and Means session, asked the state representatives to continue answering them outside the courthouse.

E-mail Lohr McKinstry at: lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com

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