1992-10-26 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e e CITY OF LA PORTE INTER-OFFICE MEMORANDUM TO: Robert T. Herrera, City Manager FROM:~ Litchfield, Director of Finance DATE: June 1, 1992 SUBJECT: FY 1992-93 Budget Requests for the Finance Department The following is an excerpt from the above mentioned letter written to Mr. Herrera in June of 1992. Return to Industrial District Appraisal by a Private Firm We have now completed one complete year under the new appraisal process. You will remember I expressed concern with our decision to allow the Appraisal District to appraise the properties. Unfortunately, I was unable to back up my concern with hard facts. I was only able to provide discussions with other Cities where they had tried to use the Appraisal District and had gone back to the private sector because of unsatisfactory service. My only real fear was that the process would be handled in the same manner they handle our Certified Appraisal Roll. My reasoning for wanting to return to a private appraiser are listed below. Because of the recent discussion we had with the City Council regarding the errors that the Appraisal District makes on our Certified Tax Roll, I will only highlight major problems that we have had during our first year under the new system. 1. During last year's budget process, I had a difficult time obtaining an estimate of our tax values. During the budget process, the Appraisal District submitted an estimate of our properties that showed a $473,254 decline from the prior year. I spent several days reviewing the properties and ended up having questions on 17 of the 49 properties on the list. For budgeting purposes, I had to use an estimate of $3,000,000, which was $530,000 greater than the Appraisal Districts estimate. When we finally received the Official list of properties and values (which was in mid September), it totaled $3,456,775, or $985,828 greater than their original estimate and $456,775 greater than what I budgeted. That amount represents moneys that could have been budgeted for any number of projects that were cut from the budget for lack of funds. Since we received the final list, there have been changes to 14 of the accounts, which reduced the value by 1.8% or $64,058.