2013 Fall Newsletter

Florida Chapter of IAAO

Fall 2013

Staying Appraised

2013 TPP SEMINAR - DECEMBER 4, 5 & 6

The 2013 TPP Seminar is right around the corner!! Topics to be presented include power generation, cellular towers and equipment and gas station equipment valuation. If you would like to present or would like to suggest a

speaker, please contact Gwen Klaiber at gklaiber@citruspa.org or at 352-341-6610

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

President’s Message ......... 2 Sales Database ................... 3 Committee News ............... 4 IAAO Update ...................... 4 County Spotlight ............... 7 Conference Update ........... 8 Professional Designation 10 Legal Trends ...................... 11 Member Spotlight ............. 13 Reaping the Benefits ....... 15 Peanut Gallery .................. 18 Career Opportunities ...... 19

ATTENDEES: To make reservations for the TPP Seminar, please call Mar- riott Central Reservations at (800) 380-7724, 24 hours a day or use the link below for online reservations: Book your group rate: TPP Seminar >> The discounted room rate will be honored December 1st until December 9 th just in case you would like to extend your stay. You must book your room by: November 11th Orlando Marriott Lake Mary for $104.00 or $114.00 (includes buffet breakfast) per night

2013-2014 FCIAAO

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

EXECUTIVE BOARD

PRESIDENT Neil “Nick” Nikkinen, AAS, CFE Real Estate Assessment Dep. Director Orange County

As we end the summer doldrums full of TRIM calls and confused property owners and enter the Fall VAB season, your Flor- ida Chapter Executive Board is busy too. On Saturday August 3, the board met all- day in Miami Beach where we discussed the goals, challenges and opportunities that face the chapter now and in the fu- ture.

VICE PRESIDENT Alice Weinberg Community Service Director Seminole County

Neil “Nick” Nikkinen, AAS, CFE

2 ND VICE PRESIDENT Todd Finlayson, CFE

One of the goals we discussed was to reenergize the Chapter’s committees. Director Tracy Drake has written an article on page 4 entitled “ Committee News ” where he shares how the board plans to restructure some committees in order to better focus on their different fields of expertise. A big THANK YOU goes out to those members who have already accepted the call to serve on these new committees. Stay tuned to future newsletters for more information. The board also discussed value added services and programs that will insure our place as a leader in quality education. Your office will soon be receiving an email survey about what type of train- ing you would be interested in, in addition to IAAO courses, for example, Microsoft, ESRI, Appraisal Institute, one-day forums, webinars etc. Please see Director Marsha Coleman’s article on page 3 regarding the chapter’s efforts to develop a statewide sales database for Chapter members. The summer ended on quite a high note with the IAAO’s 79 th An- nual International Conference on Assessment Administration in Grand Rapids (August 25-28) where your chapter won two pres- tigious awards! Vice President Alice Weinberg writes a full re- view of the conference on page 8. On a personal note, this was the first time I attended an Interna- tional conference and I was honored to represent our great chap- ter! Members of the Florida Chapter and our Property Appraisers are regarded among the finest professionals in ad-valorem as- sessment and administration in the country. Thanks again to the Property Appraisers who make this Chapter possible. Lastly, don’t forget to mark your calendars for Education week and the TPP seminar December 2-6 in Lake Mary. This year we will be partnering with the Florida DOR during the same week and same location in Lake Mary making this an exceptional week

Director of TPP St. Lucie County

TREASURER Doug Will, AAS, CFE

Chief Deputy Leon County

SECRETARY Brian Loughrey, CFE Administrative Director Sarasota County

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR Katie Casey, CFE Senior Projects Administrator Seminole County DIRECTOR Justin Edwards, CFE Office Operations Supervisor Putnam County DIRECTOR Tracy Drake, CAE, RES, AAS, CFE Assistant Property Appraiser Clay County

DIRECTOR Marsha Coleman, CFE Director of Tax Rolls Citrus County

IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT Lainie Claudio, CFE Assistant Property Appraiser Marion County

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of education and networking. You won’t want to miss it!

Best wishes on a successful VAB.

Neil “Nick” Nikkinen, AAS, CFE FCIAAO President

STATEWIDE SALES DATABASE

What would it take to create and maintain a Statewide Sales Database?

Recently there have been some discussions about creating a statewide sales data- base so that FCIAAO members could research comparable sales. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to find comps for some of those hard-to-value properties? Sure, we can go to another county’s website and perform a search for sold properties within that county and, with our fingers crossed, hope that some property comes close to what we are looking for. Gee, we only have 67 counties to look through, no biggie.

Marsha Coleman, CFE

Some of our members may already know that each July our offices submit Tax Roll files to the Depart- ment of Revenue and those files are uploaded to the Department’s FTP site along with all of the sales data conveniently located in one place. But is it really that convenient? Sure, you can click on a county link, open the Excel spreadsheet and do a quick search within that county, but when you find some- thing that you may be interested in looking at further, you would then have to take that Parcel ID and go to the website for each specific county so that you can then check it out via a property record card or GIS mapping. The Florida Chapter provides links to each county on the website for quick and easy ac- cess to the 67 Counties, which is sure to save you some time. So, while all of the submitted sales infor- mation is right there under those links, the process for finding a comp will be time-consuming to say the least. GIS mapping, mentioned earlier, has become such an important tool of many offices and is very useful for doing sales research with a visual return of the information. Pull up one particular layer and you can have all of the sales from various years on your screen. Again, searching in one county can be very easy, but if all of the data were merged into one massive database, how long would a sales search take to cover the entire state? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to enter your search criteria of how many shop- ping malls sold within the last year…or even the past 5 years and have the information populate right on the state map? Many questions still remain to be answered in pursuit of a working solution. How much system memory would be needed to maintain such a database? Who will make sure that the sales information is updated timely so that our offices can use it effectively? These are some of the concerns that have been voiced while trying to provide a useful tool that would benefit our members. So, if you are one of those problem-solving people that have read this article and already thought of three possible solutions and identified probable pitfalls, we need you! Please contact me at mcoleman@citruspa.org with your suggestions. Article Contributor: Marsha Coleman, FCIAAO Director

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COMMITTEE NEWS

It is the mission of the FCIAAO to provide educational events for its membership through relevant assessment course offerings and networking opportunities at conferences to promote professional development. The FCIAAO Executive Board understands that the strength and diversity of our Chapter lies with the volun- teers, committees, and interaction among our members. With that in mind, one of the issues discussed at the August 3 rd board meeting was the need to reener- gize and potentially restructure the Chapter’s committees. As a result, the Board approved the following Committees (the structure and procedural rules are being developed and modeled after IAAO):

Tracy S. Drake, CAE, RES, AAS, CFE

Exemptions Steering Committee

Real Property Steering Committee

IT / GIS Steering Committee

Tangible Personal Property Steering Committee

Through the Executive Board, these committees will be charged with the responsibility of reviewing the needs of the FCIAAO members and developing the timeliest, most relevant educational content for the conferences and quarterly newsletters. A complete list of the FCIAAO Committees, and its mem- bers, will be available on our website in the near future. If you are interested in serving on a particular committee, please contact Vice President Alice Weinberg.

PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATION COMMITTEE

The FCIAAO Executive Board supports our members who are seeking professional designations through the IAAO. At our August 3rd meeting, the Board approved to restructure the Professional Designation Committee (PDC) in order to promote awareness, encourage participation, and pro- vide candidates with the appropriate tools, resources and technical assistance for success. The new structure will include (2) advisors per designation. A list of Florida Professional Designation Advisors, and other valuable information, will be available on our website in the near future.

UPDATE: IAAO SPANISH LANGUAGE GLOSSARY PROJECT

The translation of the IAAO Glossary into Spanish is well underway. The Florida Chapter supported this project financially through a donation to the IAAO made last year at the IAAO Conference. Since then, the IAAO Technical Standards Committee (charged with maintaining the Glossary) has selected a professional translator through a review process, and that translator is set to begin their work within the next few months. After the translation is complete, a team of bilingual IAAO members will review the translation for accuracy and, as necessary, resolve issues. This team will be made up of members in all areas of expertise, valuation, exemption, assessment administration, mapping and personal property. Some of our own Florida Chapter members and employees of Florida Property Appraisers will participate in the 12 person review committee. They will work alongside bilingual speakers from

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different dialects.

Once the translation is finalized, IAAO plans to publish the work as an e-book on the IAAO website for both members and visitors. This effort is the first time an IAAO product has been formally translated with a goal to produce a relevant, accurate and useful document. The glossary translation will be a resource for both students working toward their CFE through IAAO coursework, and our staff working with Spanish speakers who visit our offices. The Florida Chapter has made this possible through a generous donation and, again, is a leader on the national IAAO stage.

Dorothy Jacks, AAS, CFE

If you have any questions about the Glossary translation project, or if you are interested in serving on the review committee, please give me a call at 561 355-3233 or djacks@pbcgov.org

Article Contributor: Dorothy Jacks, AAS, CFE, Palm Beach County Past President - FCIAAO

“ This effort is the first time an IAAO product has been formally translated. ”

2013 IAAO Conference Photos

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CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

SEEKING PHOTOS AND STORIES... If you’ve been in this business for longer than a month, you’ve probably heard or seen some pretty funny and unusual things. Whether it be stories from the field appraisers, or creative people applying for an exemption. The 2014 Florida Chapter Annual Conference and Business Meeting are on the horizon and if you have a particular topic that you would like to present or know of a speaker who would, please contact a member of the Executive Board as soon as possible. The conference and an- nual business meeting will be held in May in Southeast Florida. The Florida Chapter Commit- tees will assist with planning and technical equipment needed during the presentation. Typi- cal time slots range from 1 to 1.5 hours; multiple presenters and/or opposing view debates are welcome.

This photo of a flock, (or is it a gaggle, maybe just a bunch) of peacocks was taken in Crescent City in Putnam County. If you’re not able to see them all, there are a total of 6. Not sure if the owner was feeding them or it was just the place to hang out! If you have any interest- ing photos or stories, please send them to 2 nd Vice President Todd F i n l a y s on F i n l a y - sonT@paslc.org

MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

Renewal emails for your 2014 membership will be sent out in December as we continue to go paperless. Want to get a free year of FCIAAO membership? Stay tuned for our membership drive…info coming soon! Did you recently get promoted? Earn your CFE? You can update your information by logging into www.fciaao.org . If you need any assistance logging in to your account or have any mem- bership questions, please contact Katie Casey at katie@scpafl.org

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COUNTY SPOTLIGHT: COLLIER COUNTY

Collier County, along with a dozen other counties was established during the great Florida land boom of the 1920s. Originally part of Lee County, the Florida legislature established Collier County on May 8 th 1923. It is the 62 nd named county and the largest land mass county in the State, comprised of 2025.5 square miles. Approximately 70 % of the land is owned by state and Federal Govern- ments and is tax exempt.

Hon. Abe Skinner, CFA

The County is named for Barron Gift Collier, a New York City advertising mogul and land developer who moved to Southwest Florida and bought large tracts of land. He agreed to complete the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades to Miami in exchange for being considered by the state legislature to have a county named for him. After this he was quoted as saying, “When I first came here on holiday with Juliet, I never expected that I would buy a whole region of it, nor did I ex- pect to pay for the new Tamiami Trail, or half the things I have done. But I really didn’t expect to have a whole county named after me. “To this day, the Collier family is still active in the development of the county. In the early days of Collier County the economy was primarily from agriculture, commercial fishing and the timber industry. The county’s economy boomed along with its population after World War II from 6,488 in 1945 to 85,971 in 1980. Today the population of the county is in excess 340,000 and the economy is sustained from agribusiness (205,512.55 acres), tourism (78 golf courses) and real estate making Collier County one of the fastest growing areas in the country. Naples, Everglades City, and Marco Island are the county’s three municipalities, with Naples serving as the county seat. Other unincorporated settlements in Collier County include Chokoloskee, Caxam- bas, Carnestown, Copeland, Corkscrew, Goodland, Immokalee, Jerome, Miles City, Ochopee, Sun- niland, and Collier City; some of these names are rooted in the past while others retain their Seminole names.

2013 Preliminary Tax Roll At-A Glance

Real Property Parcels

263,886

Tangible Accounts

28,376

Just (Market) Value

$74,231,496,898

Taxable Value

$60,722,857,859

Hon. Abe Skinner was appointed in 1991 by Gov. Lawton Chiles | 46 total service years in CCPA | Number of Positions: 60 | Website: www.collierappraiser.com

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NAVIGATING THE RAPIDS IN TURBULENT TIMES: A GRAND VISION

An IAAO Conference Update from FCIAAO Attendee The 79 th Annual International Conference on Assessment Administration (IAAO) was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, August 25-28 th . A number of your fellow FCIAAO board members attended including President Nick Nikkinen, Vice Presidents Alice Weinberg and Todd Finlayson, Directors Tracy Drake and Brian Loughrey, and Representative Dorothy Jacks. A number of other non- board FCIAAO members also navigated the rapids.

Alice Weinberg

Some very exciting news for Florida occurred at the Tuesday morning Awards Ceremony; your Florida Chapter was again awarded the prestigious “Chapter of the Year Award”. This award is “presented to an IAAO chapter or affiliate organization that has made an outstanding contri- bution to the IAAO mission”. Your board annually submits the lengthy submission for review. Our chapter has been the proud recipient 15 times – rumor is they might re-name it the “Florida Award”. (Of course that rumor was started by your representatives!!!!). We wish to extend our sincere appre- ciation to Director Justin Edwards (Putnam County) for his hard work compiling, organizing and sub- mitting all of the required documentation for the award. Other exciting news this year is that we submitted an application to be considered for the John A. Zangerle Award; “presented in recognition of an outstanding periodical or publication of an assessors’ association, an IAAO chapter, or other similar organization that promotes the IAAO mission”. This past year, Director Brian Loughrey (Sarasota County) redesigned the format of our quarterly FCIAAO newsletter and the new application was submitted for consideration. Again, we were honored to re- ceive the coveted award! IAAO Committees met on Sunday including the Chapter/Affiliate meeting; your President Nick Nikki- nen (Orange County) represented our organization. The meeting was a great opportunity for network- ing and hearing about what other chapters and affiliates are doing in their states. The State Reps are also in attendance and Dorothy Jacks (Palm Beach County) was there to represent our state. A kickoff reception was held at the Grand Rapids Public Museum on Sunday evening and attendees were able to network and view the “Titanic Exhibit” at the museum as part of the event. Monday morning’s Opening Session was held and the keynote speaker was Steven Ford. The Ford family hailed from Grand Rapids and now is the site of the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum. The keynote address by the President’s son was a motivational beginning to the conference. Following the Opening Session the conference began with Plenary and education sessions continuing through Wednesday. Vendors were set up in the exhibit area and attendees were able to view all of the latest resources available for the valuation process and to speak face to face with the representatives. On Wednesday evening the closing banquet was held allowing IAAO President Rob Turner to wrap up his year and to introduce the 2014 President, Kim Lauffer. Florida was well represented by the following conference participants: Conference Content Commit- tee: Colleen Keene (Alachua County); Moderators: Nereia Cormier and Warren J. Weathers

(Continued on page 9)

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(Hillsborough County), Sheila Crapo (Alachua County); Presenters: Alice Weinberg and Honorable David Johnson (Seminole County), Honorable Morgan Gilreath, Jr. (Volusia County), Wendy Sapp (Alachua County), Honorable Robert Henriquez (Hillsborough County), Todd Finlayson and Vincent Rahal (St. Lucie County) and Michael Prestridge (Lake County). Florida Property Appraisers in attendance included: Honorable(s) Ed Crapo (Alachua), Bill Furst (Sarasota), Robert Henriquez (Hillsborough), David Johnson (Seminole), Morgan Gilreath (Volusia), Sharon Outland (St. Johns), Jim Overton (Duval), Rick Singh (Orange), Roger Suggs (Clay), and Ken Wilkinson (Lee). Thank you to IAAO staff, conference host committee, sponsors and all who made the 79 th Annual Con- ference a resounding success. The 80 th Annual IAAO Conference will be held August 17-24, 2014 in Sacramento, California.

Article Contributor: Alice Weinberg, FCIAAO Vice President

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ATTENTION PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATION CANDIDATES

The Tony Hodge Award is granted to FCIAAO members who earn their IAAO designation. At the 2014 FCIAAO Annual Confer- ence in Fort Lauderdale, the Ex- ecutive Board will recognize the hard work of new designees and present them with a $250 check! To be eligible, new designees must be a FCIAAO member in good standing for 12 months prior to being awarded their IAAO desig- nation. New designees should email a copy of IAAO’s letter con- ferring the designation to Michael

New Florida Designees at the IAAO Conference in Grand Rapids (l to r): An- gelica Cintron, CMS; Wanda Pate, CMS; Min Tan Clyman, PPS; Cheryl Hor- ton, CMS

Chavez, PDC Chairman ( mmc@miamidade.gov ).

CONSIDERING AN IAAO PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATION?

If you plan on pursuing an IAAO designation and have not yet applied for candidacy, please be aware some of the requirements are changing January 1, 2014 . According to the IAAO:

Members applying for candidacy on or after January 1, 2014, must, prior to receiving the CAE desig- nation, hold a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited college or university, or in lieu of the bachelor’s degree, have equivalent semester credits as specified in the Appraiser Qualifications Board requirements. Members applying for candidacy on or after January 1, 2014, must, prior to receiving the RES desig- nation, hold an Associate’s degree or higher from an accredited college, junior college, community col- lege, or university, or in lieu of the Associate’s degree, have equivalent semester credits as specified in the Appraiser Qualifications Board requirements.

Candidacy established prior to January 1, 2014 will be grandfathered under the current rules, which requires a high school diploma.

For more information, visit IAAO’s website at www.iaao.org .

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LEGAL TRENDS

Published in Fair and Equitable magazine - August 2013

Internet Telephone Service and Central Assessment An Arizona cable company that provided telephone service to its customers through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology was a telecommunications company subject to central assess- ment, the state appellate court has ruled. This ruling over– turned a tax court decision that held the company was not a telecommunications company because it did not operate traditional telephone lines. Previously, the company had been assessed as a cable television service provider at the local level. The change to central assessment, the company estimated, would increase its property tax liability five- fold. Statutory Definition According to Arizona statutes, a telecommunications company can be identified by two criteria: (1) it "owns telecommunications transmission facilities," and (2) it provides "public telephone ... ex- change or inter– exchange access for compensation." The statute does not specify particular technolo- gies that must be used. The company operates itsVoIPservice over the same cable network as its television programming and broad– band Internet services. Calls between local VoIP subscribers travel as digital packets via the company's broadband Internet. Calls to nonsubscribers and calls to other cities, even if they are within a company service area, must travel over traditional telephone wires (the public switched tele- phone network or PSTN) . The company routes these calls to its facilities known as headends for transfer to the PSTN. The PSTN services, however, are contracted from a third party. The company argued that itsVoIP offering was an "Internet protocol enabled service,'' not telephone service. As support for this claim, the company pointed out that its cable broadband network was not part of the PSTN and that any needed telephone transmission serviceswere provided by a third party. The only telecommunications company in this process, the cable company suggested was its PSTN supplier.

Court's Application The appellate court was not persuaded. The statute de- fines a telecommunications company by function (owning telecommunications facilities) and product (exchange and inter-ex– change service or, more collo- quially, local and long-distance calling) , the court said. The cable company met both criteria. First, the company's broadband net– works that carry customer calls and the headend operations that re- ceive them for transfer to the PSTN are serving the function of transmitting telecommunications, the court said. Therefore, the company owns telecommuni- (Continued on page 12)

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cations transmission equipment as the statute requires. It is not necessary to operate aPSTN, the court noted, to meet this criterion. Second, the purpose of the company's VoIP service is to provide customers with the capability of making telephone calls. Whether a company uses its own technology or purchases it from another party, the court said, it is still providing telephone service to its customers. "The relationship between [the cable company] and [its PSTN supplier] is analogous to awholesaler– retailer relationship,'' the court said. The court also rejected the cable company's argument that because its cable network was used primar- ily to carry television programming, it should still be assessed locally. The statutes require the De- partment of Revenue to assess all telecommunications companies, the court said, further noting that there was nothing in the statutes that refers to predominant use of equipment. ( CableOne,Inc. v.ArizonaDepartment of Revenue, Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division One, No. 1 CA-TX 12-0006, June 11, 2013) Assessor Conduct A taxpayer's request that a Florida assessment official be held in contempt of court has been denied by the state appellate court. The taxpayer had sought the penalty because its property was not clas- sified in subsequent tax years the way a court had ordered in the last appeal. The property is part of a subdivision that borders a lake. While lakefront residences have been built on some of the nearby parcels, the subject property is mostly covered by an orange grove. In an ap- peal for the 2008 tax year, the trial court determined that the taxpayer's property should be cate- gorized as agricultural. The court had made t h e same determination in the appeals for the 2006 and 2007 tax years. In the 2008 case, the court instructed that the land should be classified as agri- cultural until there was evidence that the use had changed. For the 2009 and 2010 tax years, how– ever, the property was still recorded as vacant lakefront and agricultural property. TheFlorida appellate court stated the property appraiser couldnotbeheld in contempt in the concluded 2008 case because he had complied with the court's orderby issuingarefund. The 2009 and 2010 clas- sifications related to different tax years which needed to be appealed separately. If the taxpayer be- lieved that the property appraiser had acted improperly in classifying its property, then the appropriate remedy as provided by Florida statuteswould be toseekpayment of the taxpayer's litigation fees and costs. ( Spencer Estates ofFlorida, LLC v. Havill, Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District, Case No. SD12- 315, Dec embe r 28, 2012)

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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: JOE REILLY, CFE, CAE

What do you do for the PA? I am the Residential Appraisal Manager for Seminole County. I have a staff of eight outstanding appraisers, and 160,000 parcels to value each year. I am also a Senior Instructor for the IAAO and teach classes part- time. How long have you been employed with the PA? I have been working in property appraisers’ offices for 21 years; one year with Seminole County and twenty years with Orange County. What do you like most about your job? There are a number of things I really like: tackling a problem, coming up

Joe Reilly CFE, CAE

with a solution, and watching my plan unfold is fulfilling (as long as it works). I enjoy wrestling with some of the really interesting appraisal problems that come our way, such as valuing a one-of-a-kind property. I also like going to work every day because I’m blessed to have such a great group of people to work with. What was your first job? My first noteworthy employment was a summer job selling books door to door during the summer of 1984 after my freshman year in college. I lived a whole lifetime that summer. Since it was a hard job with a high dropout rate, the company would send you far away from home to make it harder to quit. I was sent from Florida to rural farm country outside Rochester, New York. It was a lot of work; over eighty hours a week. It carried lots of rejection from people who weren’t expecting me and didn’t want to see me (good preparation for 5 year parcel to parcel inspections). It could be painful; I was bitten by dogs five times. It could also be strange, as one time, in order to secure a sale, I had to kill a cus- tomer’s rabid cat. Another time I had a very credible customer who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. I was also routinely pulled over by the police who wanted to know what I was doing, running around these neighborhoods. After a while I started giving the police my sales demo as well. It was a privilege meeting so many nice people and selling a lot of books. By summer’s end I had over 400 cus- tomers and $25,000 in sales. What an experience! Where were you born? I was born in Denver, Colorado, although I never really lived there. My dad was attending an air force school in the area at the time, and we moved away shortly thereafter. Where was your best vacation ever? My best vacation ever was a trip with a church group to Norway in May, 1998. We went to Bergen and the fjords on the west coast, and it was magnificent. Vertical cliffs rose straight up out of sight from the water, and it looked like a postcard in every direction. The seawater itself in the fjords was inter- esting; it was a light iridescent blue due to high concentrations of plankton. Since it was May, it was sunny with flowers blooming everywhere, and the sun didn’t go down until about 11 PM since it is such a northern latitude. The people were notably friendly, and many spoke English. Another interesting aspect of the trip was the culinary delights. Although whale meat was on the menu, I didn’t try it, but I did try horse steak. It didn’t taste like chicken; it tasted like beef. It was an

(Continued on page 14)

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amazing trip and I hope to go back someday. What are your hobbies? I have been a bona fide car nut all my life; I was probably checking out cars on the way home from the hospital after being born. I am on my 19 th car now, although I have only recently started to in- dulge in my true automotive passion of classic cars. Everybody likes classic muscle cars it seems, and I do too, but I am mainly interested in old luxury cars. To that end, in 2010 I sold my modern Honda and bought an old Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and an old Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. As time goes by, I plan to get older and older cars. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll wind up with a Model T that I have to start with a hand crank. What do you plan to do when you retire? I would love to have my own classic car dealer- ship. I could travel the country, find interesting old cars to buy, put in some minor sweat equity and resell them at my leisure. Sounds like fun! As an IAAO instructor, what is the best piece of advice you can offer to students? Get a copy of the coursework and read through it in advance of the class if you can. Always sit in the front row where it is easy to see and hear, and ask a question as soon as you don’t understand something; don’t wait and let confusion snowball. Most of the classes are the equivalent of a semes- ter of a college-level finance class squeezed into four days with a test on the fifth day. It’s not easy, so you should give yourself every advantage.

SAVE THE DATE!

TPP SEMINAR

DECEMBER 4,5,6

LAKE MARY, FL

HOSTED AT THE ORLANDO MARRIOTT LAKE MARY

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Fall 2013 Newsletter of the FCIAAO

REAPING THE BENEFITS

My name is Lee Herbst and I am the Director of Information Resources for the Marion County Property Appraiser. I am a Certified Florida Evaluator and a Mi- crosoft Certified Solutions Developer, which means that I am trained to design and develop enterprise class software using Microsoft languages and tools. I have more than 30 years of IT experience and I have been working for the Marion County Property Appraiser for 19 years.

Lee Herbst

When I started working for the Property Appraiser in 1994, we were running commercial CAMA software called OASIS on an IBM mainframe. In 2002, we were asked to cut costs and the director at the time decided to eliminate the most expensive component on the mainframe, VSE, but that left us with VM and forced us to convert to an in-house developed CAMA system running on mainframe web servers. We developed Wisard and it went live in time for the 2004 roll year. In 2006, we determined that Wisard, was no longer meeting our needs. Although, less expensive than running OASIS, hardware and software maintenance still exceeded $100,000 per year. Wisard had also been poorly designed, its performance was mediocre and it was difficult to maintain due to a lot of redundant code. A single change often meant modifying six or seven different programs. This caused severe bugs whenever one or more changes were missed. We had become reluctant to add new fea- tures that we needed and wanted. We needed a solution, so we turned to the various CAMA vendors. One rose to the top of our short list. It provided the functionality we were looking for and demonstrated excellent performance. It was ex- pensive and would cost us more than 2.8 million dollars over the next 4 years. We were tempted but, at the end of the day, the high cost turned us toward another direction. The Property Appraiser, The Honorable Villie Smith, CFA, was reluctant to consider an in-house solu- tion after the disappointment of Wisard, however, he approached me and asked if I thought we could accomplish our goals in-house. I felt that we had the skills necessary to avoid the mistakes of the past and create a CAMA system that he could be proud of. We agreed that we could limp along on Wisard until a new system could be completed. We could design the new system exactly the way we wanted it and continue to reap the benefits of an in-house staff for support. He decided to move forward with the idea and Merlin was born. Our goals for Merlin included no redundant code, high performance, flexibility, and lower costs. I de- cided on a client/server architecture using object oriented methodologies. The client/server architec- ture would allow us to move to less expensive PC servers and using object oriented methodologies would allow us to develop the system without redundant code. During the development process we faced several challenges; the first of which was training. It would have been impossible for me to do all the work by myself in a reasonable amount of time. Luckily, my PC tech, Sherry Sherouse, said she was willing to learn, so we got a set of training videos and she started on the road to become a programmer. She picked it up quickly and started coding in less than two months. She proved to be very capable and between the two of us, we were able to complete the development of Merlin.

Another challenge we ran into was data conversion. Most of it went fairly smooth; however, some of

(Continued on page 16)

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Fall 2013 Newsletter of the FCIAAO

the more drastic changes made things difficult. For example, we went from a free form name and ad- dress scheme to separate fields such as last name, first name, house number, quadrant, and street. I wrote a conversion program that got close to 95% correct and we used the office staff to correct the rest manually. Satisfying our users was another big hurdle; however, we resolved this problem by creating a small user’s group consisting of a representative from each department. The members of the user’s group would filter all the requests, needs, and wants from their department and present only those that each department truly needed. It was a lot easier for us to satisfy the users on a department level than on an individual level. We then ran into performance issues with our early functioning versions. After doing some experi- menting we found that the amount of processing on the server was bogging things down. So, I moved most of the processing from the server to the client and our performance issues disappeared. Now, when a user runs an intensive batch program, nobody else in the office notices. With our obstacles out of the way, we completed Merlin in 2010 just in time for the 2011 roll year. Merlin boasts a tabbed user interface that provides all the information they want at their fingertips. Users can click on tabs and view specific information about land, buildings, sales, etc. They are able to rearrange the order as well as add and remove tabs whenever needed and Merlin remembers those set- tings and reloads them every time the user logs on. Merlin also provides a quick read-only data view that displays the most commonly used data at the top of the screen. This area has been especially help- ful when dealing with customers on the phone. To top things off, a control bar provides the tools needed to select parcels and roll years as far back as 1989 and access searches, the change log, prop- erty record cards, and our Merlin GIS interface. We interfaced our CAMA system with GIS using an API developed by Bruce Harris and Associates. It provides a two way link between our GIS and CAMA data. Merlin GIS includes all the tools you would expect, such as zoom, pan, and select, plus, you can create property record cards and even run a sales analysis batch job on selected parcels. The Merlin batch system allows users to select from a wide range of batch programs, define parame- ters, save copies of their jobs, and run or schedule jobs. Since the batch programs run on their local PC, they do not compete with other users’ jobs and most complete within a few seconds. Reports can be printed, emailed, or saved in various formats such as PDF and Excel. The system allowed us to rec- reate state forms, removing the need to manually fill out these forms. Additionally, the users can use the batch system to download raw data for analysis in programs such as Excel. Our building sketch tool is an excellent example of avoiding redundant code. In Wisard, every program that displayed a sketch had code for drawing the sketch. That meant that the sketch screen, the printed property record card, and the website all had its own set of this very complex code and what made it even worse, it was written in two different languages. In Merlin, we created one object that knows how to draw a sketch. This object is used everywhere a sketch is needed, so there is only one copy of the “ We could design the new system exactly the way we wanted it and continue to reap the benefits of an in-house staff for support. ”

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code. Any change to this code, changes every sketch in the system. When we added support for angles in Merlin we only had to write the code once, in Wisard we would have had to write it three times in two different languages making it a nightmare to get right. Another drawback of Wisard was the way it tracked changes. Wisard only recorded what screen was updated, when it was updated, and who updated it. We needed a lot more detail, so Merlin records be- fore and after images of almost every update in the system. The change log displays what table was changed, when it was changed, who made the change and the before and after images. It also high- lights the changes to make it easier to see exactly what changed.

In this brief tour, I have only covered a small sample of Merlin’s capabilities. Some other notable fea- tures include comparing parcels side-by-side, a breakdown of parcel values showing how various as- sessed and taxable values were derived, handling value adjustment board petitions and evidence, ac- cessing parcel documents such as historic final roll property record cards and TRIM notices, accessing parcel images, providing a breakdown on how a building value was derived, and many more. So, what is the bottom line?

Figure 2 - Savings Figure 2 shows what we saved between 2006 and 2010 by developing in house. As you can see, we would have spent more than $2.8 million on vendor li- cense fees, conversion services, interest, and maintenance fees, while Merlin only cost us $190,000 to develop. We saved over $2.6 million and we continue to save. Maintenance fees for the vendor would have been about $300,000 per year. Our annual cost for Merlin, based on a 5-year hardware replacement and 3 -year software upgrade path is only around $10,000 per year, not including labor costs. How did we keep the cost so

low? The vast majority of the work was done by me and one other programmer. So, a staff of 2 was able to create a comprehensive CAMA system that avoided the pitfalls of the past, improved performance and functionality, and drastically reduced our IT budget. That just goes to show that if you have the right skill set and enough time available, you can reap significantly savings from developing in house.

FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY

Bruce Strenth, CFE I am amazed by people who have such vivid childhood memories. I am spell- bound when people are able to share with great detail things that they did, places they visited, time spent with their parents, grandparents and others as children. Now, maybe some of those people are just good story tellers, but I rather believe that they have been blessed with a treasure that money cannot buy. I know what you are thinking…that I am going to bore you with tales from my past. Fortunately for you I am not one of the ones with the vivid memory, well ex- cept maybe the fire I started that got out of control, or the hand full of sand I threw on the freshly painted house. But, that is not what this is about. I want to encourage you at whatever point you are in your life to take time to make memories. We used to say-“Stop and smell the roses”-but I want to encourage you to stop and look at them too. Build memories with your friends and loved ones that will stay with you for the rest of your life. It is too late for us to build childhood memories, but it isn’t too late to build memories with a child. Most of us live fast-paced lives in an increasingly hectic world. It is okay to slow down once in a while and let the day soak in. Fall will be coming soon. The shadows will be getting longer in the afternoon as the days shorten. I encourage you to do something special for yourself and slow up long enough to make a fond memory for the future. I have always appreciated the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. My years with Florida Chapter have provided me with opportunity to meet, share time and make memories with many of you. I encourage you to take advantage of each and every opportunity presented by FCIAAO to further your education and network with you colleagues. You can keep up with what is going on by reading this newsletter and by visiting www.fciaao.org .

Article Contributor: Bruce Strenth, CFE, Tangible Personal Property, Highlands County

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Fall 2013 Newsletter of the FCIAAO

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Senior Director, Valuations

Brevard County

Investigator, Homestead Exemptions

Brevard County

Real Estate Assessment Director

Orange County

Appraiser Analyst

Saint Lucie County

Senior Computer Programmer/ Systems Analyst

Santa Rosa County

Residential Appraiser

Sarasota County

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Fall 2013 Newsletter of the FCIAAO

Mission Statement

“To offer relevant educational opportunities in ad valorem appraisal and administration,

and to promote professional development of our members.”

A publication by the Florida Chapter of International Association of Assessing Officers