I’ve been putting off writing the concluding segment of this story for some time now and I just realized why. I have interacted professionally with the staff members of the Assessor’s Office on a regular basis for many years. They’ll call me or I’ll call them to discuss a variety of topics; current land sales, progress of new and existing land subdivisions, price trends in different areas, the appeal process of individual lots, changing tax rates,etc., etc. The great majority of time I’ve found the staff to be hard working, knowledgeable, concerned, accessable and most importantly fair in doing their jobs. Thus, I’ve been reluctant to criticize the appeal process and characterize it as unfair and one-sided by design, fearing it will be a reflection against the staff members who participate in it on a regular basis.  After all, most of their working time, which can be as much as 70 hours a week, for four months every year (July through October) is spent preparing for and testifying at these hearings. For the record, that is not my intent or belief.

The State Board of Equalization, is an independent agency, established by Arizona Statute. It is a quasi- judicial body that acts like a judge in that they make decisions based on the evidence presented at the time of each hearing. Their stated objective is to” set a fair and equitable value “on all property appealed to them. The Board members (the hearing officers) are appointees by the Governor of Arizona and members of the Board of Supervisors in both Pima and Maricopa Counties (5 in each). The Governor appoints 13 members and each Supervisor appoints 2 members for a total of 33 members.

As I mentioned earlier, I think the intrinsic structure of the Hearing Board leads to an unfair situation for the Taxpayer. In the three hearings that I participated in, each retired Assessor’s employee argued to approve the exact value recommended by The Assessor’s staff member, EACH AND EVERY TIME. Without fail, information, research and opposing discussion points fell on deaf ears. When these retired employees represent a majority of the officers at a given hearing, I believe a fair hearing is impossible. I think that the structure of the Board should be changed legislatively to eliminate past Assessor Employees from serving in this capacity. They are too steeped in the culture, have too many personal connections to the Assessor’s Office and their inherent  conflict of interest was apparent by the results. Both stakeholder’s in the process, the Assessor and the Taxpayer, should have an equal opportunity to achieve their very different objective. This is not possible  under the current system. There are many qualified professionals statewide to chose from with expertise in real estate values, appraisal, taxation and the appeal process who could insure a more  fair and  relevant outcome. At the very minimum, I would like to see a Panel of three members, with no more than one past Assessor Employee being allowed to serve. Unless and until this system is changed, the first appeal process of working one on one with an Assessor’s Staff Member becomes even more critical as perhaps the only chance a taxpayer has to really have his/her appeal be heard fairly. I’ll discuss this level of appeal in a future post. But that being said, every landowner in Pima County should mark their calendar for February 2010 as the critical date that the next annual appeal process will begin.

In a time of declining values, it is critical that an appeal be filed EVERY YEAR to give you the best chance of paying your fair share of taxes and no more.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.