Mike Wells property appraiser budget and values

45:16Yeah, we've got a property appraiser for you right now. Okay. Okay. Thank thank you. Fasano said I'm allowed to go, so we're good. Um just messing. Um good morning, Chair and Commissioners. Um I'm Mike Wells, your property appraiser. Um I appreciate the opportunity to spend a few minutes sharing how our office continues to keep pace with Pasco County's exceptional growth while remaining one of the most efficient property appraisers offices in the state. Today I'll walk you through our performance, the growth we've we're

45:46managing, how we compare to 66 other counties, and our preliminary budget outlook for fiscal year 2027. When I talk about delivering

46:00So do we need it up or are we good? You guys have it in front of you so you don't you don't need we don't have to talk about delivering more with less these numbers tell the story. Um we serve more than 348,000 parcels. for what is likely now more than six hundred and fifty thousand residents, while tain while maintaining one of the lowest costs per resident and per parcel in the state. At the same time, our team processes significantly more parcels per employee than the Florida average. Simply put, we

46:30continue to grow without asking taxpayers to shoulder to shoulder a disproportionate cost. You see the key highlights on your screen here and we're proud of those numbers. We have the second lowest budget per capita in Florida. Fourth lowest budget per parcel in Florida, and we're top five in parcels processed per employee. That translates to 41% lower cost per resident than the statewide average, 42% lower cost per parcel than the statewide average, and

47:0047% more parcels processed per employee than the statewide average. We're doing more with less every day while still providing the level of service our residents expect and deserve.

47:15This this chart here. Yeah. This chart highlights the extraordinary growth we've experienced as a county. You can see the bubble in 2006 and 2007, the decline that followed, and the steady and then aggressive climb in the market since. In 2000, Pasco's just value was 15 billion. Today it's over 92 billion. That's a 518% increase in just 25 years. That growth reflects new development, rising demand, and the county's

47:46continued success. For our office it also means more complexity, more parcels, and more responsibility. Here you can see how just value, assessed value, and taxable value have all increased over the last several years. A snapshot looking back to 2020, while market values have grown rapidly, statutory caps and exemptions help moderate what many property owners ultimately pay taxes on. This demonstrates why accurate assessments

48:16remain so important.

48:21One of the most common questions we receive is why people see three different values on their trim notice or proposed taxes. Just value is the market value, assessed value reflects any statutory caps, and taxable value is what's left after exemptions and is the figure used to calculate taxes. Helping residents understand these distinctions remains a major part of our customer service mission.

48:47Unlike many local government budgets, our budget goes through an independent review process. Florida requ Florida law requires us to submit our budget to the Department of Revenue each year. They evaluate it to ensure it's neither excessive nor inadequate. This provides an additional layer of accountability on top of the efforts we make on our own to be as efficient as possible for the citizens we serve and their hard-earned dollars.

49:13So why is our budgetary process different than so many others? The state oversight process exists for two reasons. First, it helps ensure fairness and uniformity across Florida. Second, it creates a separation between the authorities that set tax rates and the office responsible for establishing values. That independence is critical to maintaining public trust.

49:37Even with continued growth and inflationary pressures, we've challenged ourselves to remain efficient. My team looks for better opportunities, process, technology year-round. Our preliminary analysis indicates that we can reduce our budget for fiscal year 2027 while continuing to meet service expectations and manage increasing workloads. Um The slide that may best ex may be a best example of our philosophy our philosophy would be this one. Over the last five years,

50:07we've returned more than two and a half million dollars to you. I know it's nothing compared to Fasano, but um but the Board of County Commissioners um averaging over half million dollars annually. Um despite continued growth, our fiscal year 2027 budget reflects a reduction of approximately Approximately $172,000 or just over a two percent increase, decrease, sorry. Um we believe that demonstrates responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources and a commitment we take very seriously. And

50:39that's that's it. Any questions?

50:42Mm-hmm. Thank you. What's it gonna take for you to get to number one?

50:48We're work we're working on it. We're working on it. Yeah. We're always striving to be there. Trust me, it's Lee County, it's Matt. I wanna be able to

50:56Yeah. Well th there's a lot of well we can chat later. But Matt Matt does a great job. He's runs very efficient, so

51:03um so on the annual budget review, do do uh the property appraisal office have to pay the state for that work?

51:14Yeah. So that comes out of the state budget. Yeah. Okay. And then um when you appraise when your office appraised values, it's it it's it eighty five percent

51:25ninety. Ninety percent, yeah. Per department of revenue.

51:29So that's so that percentage is based upon The state?

51:35It is. And keep in mind we mass appraise so a lot of confusion is like somebody uh a homeowner will be like, Hey, why is my number one hundred and ten percent or why is my number eighty percent? uh and on average three hundred and fifty thousand parcels, we tried it, we hit the ninety percent number. So it's it's a little It's not every single that's where the tax reps come in, that's why they make a big deal about it, because it's not at ninety percent, but on average with all every single parcel we're at ninety percent.

52:01Is the property appraiser's office legally allowed to appraise, you know,

52:08Obviously the the county budget begins with your work, right? So are are you all legally permitted to appraise, say not a 90% but eighty percent? Do you have what what level of flexibility, right? Because then that kind of controls where we go, right? Uh

52:30So yeah, so Daniel, we again keep deputy of value for the property praiser, uh to answer that question. So I think we need to focus back on constitutionally what we have to do and that's assess at market value. That's what we're looking for. Um the eighty-five percent, the the cost of sales, what they call it, right um consideration is a statistical figure. Um to make sure that we don't on average exceed full market value. So because it is a

53:00statistical figure, that 85%, 90% number, we're talking about a bell curve. So the bulk of the properties are at that 85 and 90% number. Some are going to be less than that, some are going to be higher than that. So the core is was audited essentially by the Department of Revenue and approve the tax role based on that statistical balance of our assessments. Now could we assess that 80%? Um

53:31so we'd have to justify the

53:34the question. The question is is what kind of it's not necessarily the percentage, but what kind of uh level of decision making authority do you all have within the

53:45season Actually we actually have ten percent margin. If we're exceeded exceeding the market value by ten percent or are below by ten percent, um we're gonna we're gonna have to answer to the department. That's our margin in terms of statistical um uh freedom so to speak. Um so the way the statute reads and the guidelines from the Department of Revenues we

54:16can't make an adjustment in that so-called five percent value based on taxable value. So let's represent capital. Let's just say for example Like we think the cost of sale, the cost of a transaction exceeds 15%. We have to provide evidence that this says yes, it's costing X percentage to complete that transaction. The fact of the matter is that we generally don't even uh find enough

54:46so or enough evidence to support eighty-five percent or fifteen percent cost of sale. We probably could be at 90, 95% on average. There are other counties that identify certain property types with only a 5% cost of sale, so they assess at 95%. There are some that are 10% and they they assess at 90%. We're at the the state average. Which is 15%, you end up averaging it by 85% ratio. So there's

55:16flexibility in those numbers, but at the end of the day, the Constitution, fall back to that constitution, we just can't exceed market value.

55:26That's really it. It's really not my opinion, it's not the government's business on how much somebody wants to pay for piece of price. Property that's that's on them whether they choose to buy it at whatever price, right? I'm not sure. But theoretically then the property appraiser has

55:43in your your math could could theoretically appraise it's eighty-two percent or whatever it is with a ten percent vote range

55:54we'd have to justify to the front of We'd have to provide actual market evidence that says this is where we should be. Um and the likelihood of finding a transaction cost on average to be you your scenario eighty two percent would be eighteen percent, highly unlikely. We just find

56:10that very contradictory with what's going on uh in in North Florida. Uh interesting. Thank you. For that.

56:19Thank you, Dan.

56:25Th we're gonna do I think ten percent commissioner. Just kidding. Um I was just trying to get some reaction here. Um we came in at three percent. Three percent. My bad, my bad. I

56:37was

56:37gonna

56:37change my budget. Well I don't have I don't have a presentation, but thank you. We want you to feel special, Mike.

56:45Um

56:45make sure you go to this.

56:46Uh so how quickly Does a home sales new price reflect on the property crazier side? I know their software automatically like supposed to I don't

56:59want it. Does the sale price show up on our records? Yeah. So

57:08Within Day or so easy to get the deed in our office. It takes about a day or so for us to process. So in terms of processing time, two to three days depends if there's a weekend in there. That's typically how it works. And you'll see reflected in our online.

57:35So if someone bought a house say for a million dollars and then you put put it on the tax rules the next day at 15% discounted from a million dollars or do you put it on the market. Oh no. If that's what it sold for, is

57:50that the value? That's not how it would work. So we're mass appraising properties because when we're dealing with over 300,000 parcels, we can't go and uh assess one parcel at a time uh and just say, okay, a million dollar sale. We're gonna assess it at $850,000. So that's actually called a specific term or phrase called chasing sales, which is actually from it's illegal, it's not a professional practice. So what we do is we

58:20gather the transactions for similar properties and we develop these base rates for that. That group, that property type, we apply that base rate uniformly. We make adjustments, the model that is makes adjustments for the different characteristics of the home, like the age, the size, or whatever it may be. But we develop a base rate, and then it gets applied to that population. That's mass appraisal. Um so yeah, I we we would never get through three hundred thousand.

58:49No, yeah, is that done um manually or is there an algorithm like

58:54uh no we have an appraisal model um that but we look at the sales ourselves. Wow um and then we have Systems in place where I may take, I don't know, MetaPoint, for example, my you know neighborhood in on the uh east side. Pretty significant back in the day, but there's more today than than that, but MetaPoint, thousands of homes, you know back. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it probably took two weeks to get to thousands of properties

59:25now of different things, that is. And um Today we can do that same neighborhood in a couple of hours if there's problems of With sales or have we have to do more research, it may take a little more than that, but that's where we are in terms of the efficiency of being able to appraise basically a thousand properties in like two hours. So versus a fee appraiser, they do one property. Yeah, and that

59:55takes them probably a few days, and they they charge $450 per property. I think we're at $12. I think the number was

1:00:05okay. So it doesn't go on, uh each house doesn't go on on its market value, it's an average of a neighborhood.

1:00:11Yeah, we developed the base rate as long as our model is. working and that's part of our work is that we we make uh adjustments to the model and make sure that our um it's working for the sample. Okay.

1:00:28So Daniel Do you all start your the appraisal process after the the

1:00:34home is CO'd? Uh yes, typically that's that's the way to do it. Um substantially complete is uh the stat

1:00:45Once it's substantially complete, we can pick it up for the tax roll. So as of January 1, though, is the key date, so it has to be substantially complete as of January 1. Typically we're looking for that CO as of that date. It's not there. We're probably not not gonna pick up that property that year.

1:01:04So your CO's trigger Your

1:01:06portion of the The the initial trigger is the final permit. That's the initial that's uh that's what we see um and we we're picking up on the final permit. Because in our eyes, substantial completion is a reflection of the final permit.

1:01:21Is the county

1:01:25getting the C O or the final permit information over to their team timely before January one. Because if we dump I guess my question is if we dump in Uh by January one and at the end of a normal Q four we dumped. However many on 'em and then they're having to work overtime, double time, triple time to meet that January one deadline is the county's side of the house. efficient in giving them

1:01:55timely information that they can manage over time or whatever goes in for them doing that work to help keep their cost efficient.

1:02:02I can help with answer that because we do have a really good r uh r uh relationship with the county and and permitting Um The uh Uh generally speaking we have an automatic report from a seller. uh that we receive. Um and I I believe we're we're set on a weekly basis. Um But Uh there's no issue uh with us necessarily retrieving a lot of the data. It could be more efficient, it could be where

1:02:32we it's a more of a little more automated But in terms of um Any delays Let's just say for example. January one is our assessment date. N and they give me the permits that were finaled The following week, the following month. It's irrelevant to us because again we're assessing as of January one. So as long as we get it within the tax year, which is what we're talking about now. For You know, the

1:03:03development of the tax rule for twenty six. We have essentially Um So right about this time of the year. to figure out okay what actually finaled as of January one of twenty six. So we have this six month recently period Uh from January one to make sure that we did get all the permits. Other hiccups once in a while, sure. But for the most part very efficient and we have a good gap of time where we can catch up with anything that we may have missed or you know got lost

1:03:33in in the uh Um Communication. So In terms of efficiency, it's there. I mean it could be tweaked. But if you have a further answer to that, feel free to I mean

1:03:44because you don't have a full twelve months to do this.

1:03:52Yes, sir. With the you know, work between the the agencies You know, it's our responsibility to get you what you need on a timely basis, not drive up your costs because of something that our side of the fence is doing. And if we are doing that Be bluntly honest. But we w and we will fix it.

1:04:14Yeah, though the only the only thing I would suggest is that we have just a a little bit more um Cleaner connection to a cella. Uh that's really it. Uh right, 'cause right now we're we're really I mean we have access to a cellar. We get a report, essentially it's emailed to our office. Um but if we work through say, you know, something like an API uh that we have direct access to that database, um, then

1:04:44you know it could speed things up. Um and probably automated quite a bit of items. But that's more of an IT situation than

1:04:55Wherever wherever the wherever the

1:04:58Sure. But that I mean in terms of uh you know suggestion that that's probably my only suggestion. I but uh overall regardless they do a very good job and we do our best to make sure we we caught 'em all and we do some quality control and seems to be working

1:05:13well. We we I'm sure all of us here. critical comments about Acela. First time hearing it from the property appraiser's office. Uh so it's really becoming truly un universal. So if there's a way to work with IT and Continue to work the bugs out and make it more user friendly.

1:05:34Sounds like it's an access issue, which sounds like that may be pretty pretty easy. Well we used to

1:05:39have access and now we don't. I uh now's not necessarily the time, but we used to have access and I'm not sure why why we don't anymore. There was some layers, but yes, it's not like we're gonna go in there and mess anything up. But we you know but again your team does an unbelievable job. Your IT folks

1:05:53everyone. Well I I think there's been a couple iterations um you know of a cella and whether that was a database database issue I don't know but They went from one phase one nacella to or whatever to the next version of it and next and things got a little bit, you know, missed in translation and and those But I think you're at a pretty decent spot at the moment. Um But could it be tweaked obviously anything can be tweaked

1:06:24on the easy thing? Well if it adds if

1:06:25if on our end we need to add efficiencies and it keeps staff time down and uh

1:06:32Saying one hundred percent.

1:06:33Absolutely, we'll take that for action.

1:06:35And I think we've got David Allen here and Todd Bailey here, so Message to be that we've got to be able to do that. Mr. Bailey there, yeah.

1:06:44I appreciate it. And actually I'll I'll Mr. Bailey, he's been really good with uh communicating with us. We've talked with him about uh actually we have a new product that we collaborated with that's called Vexel, the imagery, uh that we use for our aerials. Um And uh you know, we've had our hiccups for sure. Um But it looks like we we received our deliverables here recently and we're going through it or actually sending The deliverable up to the Department of Revenue for their final check to make sure we can use it for certified

1:07:15aerials that we required by law to have. But part of the reason to have Vexel in this partnership in in uh with the imagery with the county? It has technology where we can automatically track changes year over year. Um and That's that's pretty big. Um because now we may not necessarily have to send a field man to go check. physically inspect the property to see if there was a footprint change when we can

1:07:45uh essentially part of it is AI, but uh see if the footprint actually changed through that aerial imagery. So Uh Mr. Bailey has helped us through that, but you know. We continue to strive uh to improve those kind of relationships in technology for sure.

1:08:01I don't think our taxpayers would mind if y'all actually didn't didn't see something. No say it. I wanted to do it. But it

1:08:09is it's a good

1:08:10idea.

1:08:10Efficiency is a double edge story.

1:08:20For unpermitted work when they see it. It's it's it's a good thing. Absolutely.

1:08:24Mr.

1:08:25Stark. I I have one quick question. It's you know something that sorry, I keep going back to all the time, Jimmy. So we have some uses that are grandfathered in, um, specifically adult clubs. Um and it just gripes me that that one uh in my district pays two thousand dollars a year in property taxes. Yes. Um So I I'm just wondering if the if there is a um A

1:08:55grandfathered use there, does that raise the value of the land or it w where does that get captured?

1:09:02That's something to consider. Um but we have to pay attention to what it the current use is um and the actual structure that's in on you know on the parcel. Um that affects the valuation process. Um could we Look into the future uh and and estimate what that property you know is what we would call highest and best use analysis. Um we can do that for up to, you know, maybe a year or so. But five

1:09:32years down the road it may you know For whatever reason they may demolish it and then. Something much better. More productive. uh ends up getting built there, there's gonna be more value. We can't make that leap from What's possibly gonna happen with this property next year to what it may be doing five years from now. So When we talk about the potential use and use changes that we have to we have a very short leash as to how we can uh view that and and value it.

1:10:02Mr. Chairman Mariano. So if it was sold for a million and a half dollars, does that not affect

1:10:07the value of

1:10:07it?

1:10:08What was the number, I'm sorry?

1:10:09One point five million a couple of years ago.

1:10:12The transaction that I think we we discussed probably a couple of years ago. Um that was uh a disqualified transaction. I think it related to something to do with the mortgage or something of a foreclosure issue. So we would not use that transaction for valuation. It's it's not a qualified um sale. Uh if it's the same transaction we talked about a couple years ago.

1:10:35Oh that's interesting. Not a qualified story. Mr. Star Should

1:10:38You need to you need to remember the property appraiser's job is to assess the value of the land Not The potential revenue that may be flowing through a business. So it's the they're looking only at what the structure the l the What that piece of land He's worth it. as a mass appraisal is worth. Not a little bit. what the a particular business may be true making an income.

1:11:09You're absolutely right. We don't assess business value.

1:11:15Uh Mike, I got a question for you. As far as the um growth in recent years, and I'll go back to twenty twenty, it looks like the value was about Uh forty to forty-five billion. Now it's up much higher from that. We had a lot of residential growth that was in it, but there's also a lot of commercial. Do you guys have a breakdown as far as what the commercial growth numbers were then to what they are now? And what of that is brand new buildings but new commercial that you could show us?

1:11:40We can get you that information. We absolutely have it. So yeah, we can get we'll get it to you I don't want to say today.

1:11:46I'm

1:11:46just interested our our commercial um director is There, so we might be able to put something together. Don't

1:11:52even need to have just something on what I have for for second. We'll do that. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Daniel. All right. Good job. We'll go uh tax uh tax collector, Mike for a second.