Charles Horan and Henry Robinson unveil the Alaska CAMA system, which uses a computer database to evaluate, record, and store property tax data. The city’s assessor, Wendy Lawrence, wants to adopt the system to bring Sitka into compliance with state regulations. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)
Sitka has the third highest property values in the state of Alaska, following Juneau and Anchorage. But for over a decade, nearly half of Sitka’s properties have not been assessed. This not only leaves city assessors scrambling to catch up, but also means Sitka is out of compliance with state and federal regulations. The issue came before the Sitka Assembly Tuesday night (12-13-16). The assessing department wants to take the work of fair taxation out of the hands of humans and place it in the processor of a computer.
Sitka has 7000 property accounts and Wendy Lawrence is in charge of assessing them all. The problem is that she doesn’t have have the manpower or the technical capacity to keep up. “We just don’t have the staff to do that, we don’t have the time to audit, etc. So we have some problems,” she told the Assembly during a work session Tuesday night.
A breakdown of property tax revenue collected by Sitka’s three-person assessment department this year. (Chart courtesy of Sitka Assessment Department)
Sitka’s total tax base is $1.1 billion. A small portion of that money comes from taxes on personal property like boats and aircraft. Basically, anything that can be moved. But Lawrence said a lot of work goes into assessing that kind of moveable property, with little payout for the city. “We discovered is that we were spending 60% of our resources on 8% of the revenue.”
The department isn’t meeting their annual inspection quota. General Code states that Sitka is on a four year property tax cycle, which would mean assessing 1000 properties a year. But the department’s three full-time staff haven’t been able to do that. Lawrence explained, “Historically before the year 2015, we were completing about 300 reevaluations every year. Through the policies that we’ve limited, we’ve managed to up those inspections. But the real limiting factor is on the evaluation side. I am the evaluator. I have to value each of the parcels by hand. We do not have an automated evaluation.”
Lawrence urged to Sitka Assembly to approve spending on a computer-assisted mass appraisal system (CAMA). Right now, it takes two hours for staff to visit a house and assess it at market value. With a CAMA system, their time is cut down to 45 minutes. And it’s all done on an iPad.
Charles Horan of the Alaska CAMA company walked the Sitka Assembly through the perks of the tool, which has also been used to asses Skagway and Craig. “Rather than go on and on and on about how big a porch is and how beautiful it is, you click. Porch #1. Boom. You’re done. It’s just really…its amazing!,” Horan said, clicking his way through the system.
CAMA can assess like-properties in batches – say, all single-story family homes in a neighborhood. And because all the data is available in one place, staff can pull up records quickly. This is useful when citizens challenge their property values during the Board of Equalization. Horan said he’s no stranger to those. “Having sat or administered, like, 80 boards of equalization over all of these years and dealing with taxpayers and equity and fairness…this is huge. To be transparent. Because everyone thinks the city is out to get them. And the assessors and the city’s contact with the public at the property…it can be stressful. And it trickles down to you guys.”
Stressful, and risky. A state audit this year declared Sitka’s system is deficient, which is why the Assembly was quick to act on Lawrence’s recommendations. They unanimously approved, on first reading, appropriating $150,000 for that CAMA system to be implemented over the course of four years (budget-adjustment-cama-system). They also agreed to extend Sitka’s property tax cycle to six years (resolution-revaluation-cycle), and to eliminate taxing personal property all together (ord-2016-45-property-tax-administrative-changes).
That does not include personal property used for business and non-light aircraft. That’s defined as anything with a gross weight over 12,500 lbs. But Pipers or Cessnas won’t be taxed. Nor will commercially licensed boats. Assemblyman Steven Eisenbeisz questioned the fairness of this. “We have quite a few multimillion dollar boats operating as business that will then be exempt, while the shore-based business does not enjoy that same exemption. So while encouraging one sector, we’re not doing it equally,” he said.
Lawrence pointed out that no other Southeast communities taxes boats and that passing this would make Sitka a more desirable place to tie up. The Assembly will have another chance to review the policy at their last meeting of the year on December 27th.
