More Unusual Assessing Inconsistencies - 7 Auburn Street

This property, 7 Auburn Street, is owned by an attorney and serves as the law office.  The owner filed for an abatement in 2017. The property owner is granted the abatement by the Board of Assessors.

KRT performed the assessment update in 2018 and this property owner emailed the assessor to ask if the property could stay at the same assessment as 2017. The Assessor agrees to price fix the property at the 2017 level; a decision that calls into question his ethics. All properties were supposed to be reassessed in the 2018 statistical update. This property should not have been excluded.

The Assessor forgets to fix the assessment and reduce it to the 2017 level, so the property owner has to file another abatement for 2018, which is processed last year.

The Assessor creates a new abatement and, once again, carries the burden to prove the assessment is not fair. The law states that the burden of proof is on the property owner. Shoddy, invalid sales data is used, building square footages are labeled incorrectly and a “fudge factor” of unknow origin is applied to reduce the assessment. He never visits the property to verify if any of the improvement the property owner intended to make in 2017 were completed.

I addressed the Board of Assessors on this specific property and was told I could only address it in non-public session. The Board sealed the minutes and locked the public out of knowing what the assessor was actually doing. I requested that the minutes be unsealed and public; My request was denied by legal. The City is hiding and protecting apparent unethical practices and protecting Assessors who are supposed to be able to value defend their work. The activity section and the comment section of the card identify Greg Turgiss as the responsible assessor. Why are questions about his work being sealed in non-public minutes?

The Assessor pulls the wool over the Board of Assessors eyes and bring this new abatement to the Board without telling them that they had already approved an abatement 8 months ago on the same property. There is no policy in place whereby the Assessor needs to identify the last abatement granted.

All the sales properties used to compare 7 Auburn Street for the 2017 abatement, increased in the 2018 KRT update as they were intended to. The only property that did not increase was 7 Auburn Street. So, in 2017, the Assessor reduces the assessment from $390,000 to $240,000, almost a 40% reduction. The KRT update increases the assessment from $240,000 to $373,800, then the Assessor awards a 2018 abatement reducing from $373,800 down to $228,500.

Does who you know matter? The math just doesn’t add up here and the Mayor needs to answer these questions.