Implementation of Technology for 2011Revaluation Johnston County September 17, 2010

1. Implementation of Technology for 2011RevaluationJohnston County September 17, 2010 • Presentation prepared by Letitia Jones and Sheila Garner

2. Background • Approximately 90,000 parcels • Encompasses an area of 795 sq. miles • Population in excess of 174,000 • Among the fastest growing counties in North Carolina in the last ten years • In the top 100 fastest growing counties in the United States during that same period

3. Why Change? • Soaring costs associated with revaluation • Past revaluation experiences • Technology

4. Consideration Pilot Study Revealed • At least ninety percent of property characteristics were correct. • Structures on property not on tax records. • Structures on tax records but not on property. • Indentifying all structures on large parcels proved difficult. • Typical revaluation may not correct these errors.

5. Project Components • Pictometry Review • Street Level Images • Spatialest

6. Action Plan • Determine new neighborhoods. • Obtain new photos. • Determine condition and grade of structures, Appraiser to ride in van. • Segregate properties by improvement type. • Visit only properties flagged for field visit. • Set land rates earlier and analyze them. • Conduct final review.

7. But how? • As the time for the 2011 project approached, it was time to turn the idea into a reality. • With the help of our CAMA vendor, new “tools” were implemented to augment our existing CAMA • It takes a village…what an understatement.

8. PICTOMETRY In Johnston County

9. Goals • Office review all residential properties including single family and manufactured • Make as many in office corrections as possible How Accomplished • 60,402 parcels loaded into work queues • Phase I – 3 employees working full time with up to 10 people working on the project at any given time. Matched property record card or put in pending queue for appraiser review • Phase II – 4 appraisers reviewing 23% of parcels

10. Workflow Queues

12. Pictometry Review Two Screens

13. PROPERTY CAN BE REVIEWED FROM ALL DIRECTIONS

14. Cumulative Workflow Projections

15. Work Queue Actions • Completes refer to all data elements verified • Pending refers to improvements that need an appraiser review before being moved to the field work queue • Only appraisers could move improvements to the field work queue based on their expertise

16. Time Frame • Phase I – August 25 to December 16 • Phase II – Completed in mid April Results • If change can be made from desktop, appraiser makes the change or sends it to data entry for changes • If change cannot be made, parcel is flagged for field check • Approx 2% of parcels reviewed in Phase II flagged for Field Review

17. Considerations • Two monitors were needed for each workstation • Software purchases were required for making “notes” on work queue records- Adobe Professional • CAMA vendor integration to load data changes back to CAMA file and to create work queues

18. Cost Savings • Used existing staff plus 2 temporary workers (already employed by tax office) • Fewer field visits required by contractor • Price per parcel for 2011 revaluation reduced from $25 +/- to $17.50

19. Street Level Images • County had street level images from early 2000 • New images or Not? • Decision for new images with new software to manage addition, deletion, and file labeling • How could the field visit for the new street level images be used for an appraisal review at the same time?

20. Street Level Images

21. Goals • Street-View Image all improved parcels • Geo-Referenced Structure Locations • Address Verification • Appraisal Data field verification of selected property characteristics by revaluation team How Accomplished • Selected parcels divided into a mapped grid • Contractor vans and employees take images, geo-ref structures, verify address • Revaluation team and county appraisers verify property characteristics and collect data for further in office and field review

23. Appraisal Data for review in van

24. Map view & image taken in van

25. Time Frame • January 2009 thru May 2009 Results • 60,000+ new images added and tied to parcels in the CAMA system • 18000+ structural data elements changed and applied to the revaluation file

27. VISUALIZE • GENERATE • USE GEOGRAPHY • INTERACT • ANALYZE • SEE WHAT’S REALLYGOING ON……

28. What is Spatialest? • The Spatialest product is a GIS based valuation toolset designed to generate estimates of value based on highly comparable parcels that are also locally proximate. • It involves a visual or geographical concept to analysis in addition to tabular forms of data. • Some refer to spatial analysis as “location analysis” because location plays a key role. • Value influence centers such as golf courses, shopping centers, or a county land field, etc. can predict or influence the value of surrounding parcels.

29. Main Benefits of Spatialest • Appraise using a location sensitive model • Visually review and incorporate value influences such as Golf courses or lake frontage • Calibrate the model, stratify or remove outliers geographically and statistically • Review location of comparables and their characteristics • Create reports with estimated values, a location map, model statistics and the location and attribute information of the comparables used to generate the estimates • Visualize and understand patterns and trends • Incorporate and accommodate for patterns and trends • Provide an intuitive interface for CAMA Modeling • Facilitate the management of appeals and review of comparables

30. Benefits Applied to Tax Office • Spatialest uses the Sales Comparison Approach to value parcels and is displayed geographically and will aid in verifying that our CAMA (computer assisted mass appraisal) system (which uses a point-value system to value our properties.) is accurate. • Spatialest proves that our Schedule of Values reaches market value in a geographic perspective. • This means less printed out reports and thus less paper usage and man-power hours creating and printing the reports. • An example of how Spatialest can assist in determining “market value” is: Being able to see geographically the sale price of a house built by the same builder in two different subdivisions in two different parts of the county. • Finally this product will play a significant role in the appeal process. With the use of the map which will contain the appellants’ property, the comparables used to determine value, and a summary of attributes and model parameters will often times be enough to dissuade many appellants.

31. Getting Started • Market Delineation is an important task in Spatialest modeling. We divided the county into six market areas in Arc Map and created shape files of these areas. • Shape files were projected into lat/long and imported into the Spatialest software in order to create the unique user points of each market area. • Tables were created from our CAMA capturing appraisal data information as well as sales history • Modeling and Statistical analysis could now be performed on separate market areas

32. Market Areas Created in ARC Map as Shape files then projected into Lat/Long and transferred into Spatialest. Once each market area is in Spatialest user points can be created for each parcel within the Market Area.

33. Example of Spatial Selection Market Area 3 in Spatialest

34. Example of Building Value Ranges Color-Coded for Visual Ease

35. Selection Summary

36. Identify problem areas

37. Analysis Made Easy

38. Frequency of Sold Parcels with Exterior Wall in Market Area 3

39. Displays graphs allowing user to query the outliers as seen by the photo

40. Test Significance of Floodway on Sales of Parcels

41. Example of One Mile Radius of Hog or Poultry Farm

42. Comparables of Subject fall inside and outside of buffered area

43. Subject & Comparables

44. Comparable Map with Street Level Image

45. Spatialest Software Complements CAMA • Spatialest provides a great tool to compare values generated by multiple regression analysis (traditional) with the Spatialest comparable model (location sensitive model). • It provides quick analysis on certain areas of the county providing statistical evidence on how values are reacting in the market. It tells us where we are and if it is where we need to be. • If choosing to use the values generated by Spatialest we can simply upload the values via SQL server straight in to our CAMA system. • Spatialest can also be very helpful in times of appeals to show taxpayers the comparables used on their properties and the location of these comparables. • Spatialest also can generate a New Notice of Value to present to the taxpayer with their new values along with the images and appraisal data of the parcels that are comparable to their property.

46. Instant Parcel Report

47. ...Reports continued

48. Customized Report for Notice of Valuation

49. Costs and Conclusions • Pictometry yearly license fee paid by E911 funds except for $32,000 contributed by tax office • Digital images $2.50 per image (with software) and $1.15 for appraiser to use computers and work in the van • Spatialest $1 per parcel plus consulting days and training. • Cost of revaluation proposal reduced by $716,250 • Technology investment $360,000

50. Costs and Conclusions • While the county saved a net of $356,250 which is good, the tax office implemented state of the art technology for maintenance and future revaluations. • Was it easy? No • Was it beneficial? Yes • What were the issues? Communication, training, change, new work tasks, loss of comfort, • Stay tuned…