Property Assessment

The Go-To Organization for Property Assessment Training

Any membership organization that’s been around for more than 80 years must have a winning system for satisfying the needs of its members.  One way that the IAAO achieves this winning system is to re-invent what they offer to members in the way of educational courses and training.  

The annual conference demonstrates the IAAO commitment to educational sessions that attendees can benefit from and put to immediate use in their jurisdictions or organizations.  As the “internationally recognized leader and preeminent source for innovation, education, and research in property appraisal, assessment administration and property tax policy” as the IAAO vision statement reads, that’s no small task.

This year’s conference includes educational sessions that are timely.  How technology is impacting assessment administration, property tax policy reform, changing trends that must be considered in developing property valuations, and evolving technical standards are just a few topic categories for the 81^st conference.

The conference is being held September 13 to September 16 in Indianapolis, Indiana. More details about the 81^st conference, including the educational schedule, can be viewed at http://conference.iaao.org/. 

If you think that this is just a gathering of local assessors and tax administrators reinforcing their own ideas on one another, you would be wrong. The annual IAAO conference is a place where property assessment administration specialists, private industry experts, and academic authorities meet to share best practices, new ideas, lessons learned, and successful practices and methodologies.

This year’s educational session presenters include the following companies and organizations:

Access Valuation, LLC
Almy, Gloudemans, Jacobs & Denne 
American Valuation Group, Inc. 
Appraisal Research Corporation 
Bloom, Sluggett, Morgan Law, PC 
Bose, McKinney & Evans, LLP 
CourtHouseUSA, LLC  
Don R. Scheidt & Co., Inc.  
ESRI  
International Property Tax institute  
Josh Myers Valuation Solutions  
Marshall & Swift  
Marvin F. Poer & Company 
Nexus Group  
Pictometry International Corp.  
Property Valuation Services Corp. of Nova Scotia  
Sunbelt Rentals, Inc.  
Tax Management Associates, Inc.  
TEAM Consulting, LLC  
The Appraisal Foundation 
The TrU Group  
Thomson Reuters  
Tyler Technologies, Inc.  
Walmart Stores, Inc. 

Although the IAAO is an educational organization, its leaders understand that they can’t always provide the range of topics encountered by its members solely with their own offerings. The IAAO listens attentively to and involves academic institutions and organizations.

This year’s educational session presenters include the following academic institutions and organizations:

Indiana University
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Marshall University
Oklahoma State University
Riga Technical University, Latvia
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of New Hampshire
University of North Carolina

Through a combination of actions during the last several years the IAAO has focused on international topics that are especially beneficial to those that are improving their property tax assessment systems and setting up new systems in developing countries.

In 2013 the IAAO officially established an International Committee after an ad hoc committee spent several years supporting the mission of IAAO by increasing global awareness of programs, education, and networking opportunities.

In 2014 the IAAO adopted the “Global Guidance on Mass Appraisal and Related Tax Policy.” This guidance document “provides guidance on mass appraisal of real property at market value. The primary focus is on mass appraisal for value-based recurrent property taxes (also known as ‘rates on property’). However, the principles presented here are also relevant to mass appraisal for other governmental and public purposes.” 

This year’s educational sessions include a number of presenters from local assessment jurisdictions and state departments of taxation or revenue from the United States – particularly from Indiana where the conference is being held - but also from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the World Bank Group. While the number of countries that will be represented by attendees is not known at this time, educational session presenters include people from the following countries:

Canada
China
Granada
Hong Kong
Latvia
Lithuania
Spain
The Netherlands

I began this by saying that the IAAO is successful at re-inventing what they offer to members in the way of educational courses and training. IAAO leaders and staff are continually looking for ways to improve their offerings. The theme of this year’s conference is “Racing Toward Assessment Innovation.” A pre-conference education one-day workshop entitled “Reviewer and Developer's Workshop” will be held both September 12 and 13, 2015. IAAO has developed this workshop to train members who are new to course development or want to sharpen existing skills.

As the IAAO continues to improve its educational courses, workshops, and webinars, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to look closely at how these opportunities can benefit you personally, your jurisdiction, or your company or firm.

Invest in Your Career

Education and training budgets are thin during these economic times, if not non-existent.  During the five year period from 2007 to 2012 when I worked as the chief assessor for a small jurisdiction, they had no budget at all for education and training. But during that time I managed to attend one international assessment conference, and several state-sponsored and appraisal organization-sponsored classroom or online courses.

For me, continuing education is not an optional undertaking, it’s a requirement. And in a fast-paced field like assessment administration and property valuation, it should be a desirable goal. While attending several courses attendees commented to me that it was a shame that my employer wasn’t paying for my educational expenses. My response was, well they are letting me take administrative leave with pay and I’m hoping my accountant agrees that it is a justifiable employee expense.

For those of you who run your own appraisal businesses, or tax compliance and management companies, I’m sure you can see the benefit of someone paying your salary while you are sitting in class or attending a three day conference. But this is seldom overlooked by people who haven’t been there. I have spent five of the last 10 years working as an independent property tax consultant. And I’ve attended educational courses knowing that I was not only paying to addend the course, but forgoing the opportunity cost of not producing any work while I was there.

No matter where you are in your career, invest in your education. It will be some of the best money you have ever spent and will endure for your lifetime.  And knowledge is something you can pass on to others.

If you are an assessor or in the field of assessment administration, or property tax compliance and management, I urge you to buy the recently released Conference Proceeding of the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO). I was fortunate enough to have attended the conference this year and it was packed with educational content. I spent about $2,500 attending the conference (I flew from Rome, Italy to Kansas City, Missouri), but you can get the proceeding for just $35, if you’re a member, and $55 if you’ve not a member.

And because there were so many interesting educational sessions each day, I will study the proceedings to find out what I missed while I was in my sessions. The following link will take you to the IAAO website to see a detailed description of the proceedings and purchase them:

http://www.iaao.org/Store/detail.aspx?id=EPROC_CONF-12
   
Be sure to give me your feedback on the proceedings. I really think you are going to enjoy them!

Richard

Clever Summer Reads

Best Book Recommendations for Career Advancement

Whether you are taking limited time off and staying around home or taking a long and exotic vacation, if you’re like me you’ll want some reading material for entertainment.  I usually bring a few books (in paperback or e-reader version) that are just for fun and some for education.  If you consider yourself to be a lifelong student, as I do, you may enjoy one or more of the following books for your summer reading pleasure.

I’ve read each of these dozen books over the last 18 months and recommend them all for various reasons.  Six are what I call traditional books on their topics and the other six are non-traditional.  I consider them non-traditional because the author takes a unique and sometimes controversial approach to the subject.  I recommend these non-traditional books to even the most conservative readers if for no other reason than to discover what new thinking is out there and what your employees or job candidates may be thinking. 

Many of these books are available in paperback, e-reader, or audio versions.

Traditional

The First 90 Days in Government by Peter H. Daly and Michael Watkins

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan by George B. Brandt, Jayne A. Check, and Jorge E. Pedraza.

You’re In Charge - Now What? by Thomas Neff and James M. Citrin

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins

StrengthsFinders 2.0 by Tom Rath

Right From the Start: Taking Charge in A New Leadership Role by Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins

Non-traditional

The Art of Non-conformity by Chris Guillebeau

The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman

Living for the Weekday by Clint Swindall

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

Free Agent Nation by Daniel Pink

Please comment on these or your own favorite books so that our readers can benefit from your experiences and insight.

Plan to Attend the 31st IAAO Annual Legal Seminar

On December 9 and 10 the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) will present the 31st Annual Legal Seminar in Chicago, Illinois.  The Legal Seminar offers the unique perspective of members who are primarily involved in legal issues.  The seminar presents substantive and procedural developments in laws that affect assessments and valuation. Sessions include: Case Law Updates, Selecting Expert Witnesses, Cross Examination, Redirect Examination, Low Income Housing Tax Credit Projects, Complex Industrial Properties, Valuation of Billboards, Insights on Ethical Dilemmas and variety of other topics.

Early bird registration closes November 17th.  IAAO professional designees will earn 12.25 hours of recertification credit.  Attendees may be eligible for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit.  Due to significant variations in each state’s CLE rules and regulations, IAAO can not guarantee that states will approve the seminar for CLE credit. Illinois state approval of CLE hours is pending. Attorneys may request other states for CLE approval when they register for the seminar.

For more information click here to access the IAAO website that gives further details.

The IAAO, established in 1934, is one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive associations for assessment professionals.

76th International Conference of the IAAO a Winner

Building Strong Communities Locally and Reaching Out Internationally

Ever attend a conference that has great sounding educational sessions and training opportunities and afterwards you felt like the sponsor didn’t deliver on their promises?  I have and I’m guessing many of you have too.  Fortunately I just returned from a great 3-day conference sponsored by the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) where everything progressed like a finely-tuned clock and the educational sessions were exceptional.  My test of a successful conference is coming home having learned several important things that I can put into practice in my job right way.

The three most important things that I learned during this conference were:

1. Property assessment offices around the world are sharing innovative ways that they have implemented and achieved through the use of aerial photography, street view   images, geographic information systems (GIS), and electronic data collection techniques.  Several emerging countries have leaped from no assessment records to a complete set of electronic records in a matter of months using these new technologies that reduce the number of assessment office staff needed to collect and process such data.

2. Property assessment offices are finding statistically proven ways to deal with the large number of foreclosure-related sales that have occurred in their jurisdictions.  While it has not been easy, and increased numbers of assessment appeals have generally been experienced, property assessors who have experienced the cycle from foreclosure to bank-owned property sale to second sale after the initial foreclosure can advise those who are experiencing challenges in the earlier parts of this cycle.

3. Through the use of new technologies appraisal staff in many assessment offices are now better able to concentrate on valuation techniques and problem properties where typical data collection and valuation models are not proving adequate.  As a result local governments are able to do more with less, working smarter so that scarce resources continue to be used wisely.

Other attendees are encouraged to share what they learned or how they felt about this year’s conference.

The IAAO completed their 76th international conference on September 1 in Orlando, Florida.  As one of nearly a thousand attendees at the 3-day event I was very satisfied with the quality of this year’s conference.  I’m hoping that all of this year’s attendees came way having learned practical things that will make them more successful and efficient in the work they do as local property assessors and tax administrators.

Here is a great big thank you to the IAAO staff, all the conference sponsors, host committee members, and the educational session presenters and moderators.