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| Continuing Education—New Ideas for Delivering Training |
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Gordon Tiemeyer, ATS
The methods by which we can deliver training to our customers are continually changing. New technologies and equipment add to our ability to provide needed training. We are evaluating several methods; for PTD, we recently tested video conferencing.
We recently used this method for BOPTA clerk training, with positive results. Using the video conferencing network that was set up and made available by DHS, Sandra Sture, an AA3 in ATS, was able to provide the annual training to BOPTA clerks throughout the state.
Video conferencing is available at DHS sites throughout the state. The rooms are set up with all the needed equipment and, with a little support, can provide training attendees a specific location to attend the training. The equipment includes cameras and monitors at each location. At outlying sites, the monitor view is controlled by the trainer, who can choose to have the camera on them or to display what is on their laptop, such as a PowerPoint presentation. The trainer determines what set-up they would like.
On the trainer's end, there are two monitors. One monitor shows what the outlying sites are seeing; the other shows each outlying site. The latter appears in a "Brady Bunch" view, showing all the sites at once. If there are several sites, these views can be very small. You can tell that there are people there, but would be hard pressed to make out faces. Each site has a microphone to enable interaction between the trainer and the attendees.
Other methods we are evaluating include producing a training presentation that will then be made available on the department's website. Attendees can go to the training website whenever they would like to see the presentation and pick which sections they would like to see. This would work great for new personnel, especially in an Assessor's or Tax Collector office. We might also be able to put the presentation on a DVD or CD and send the disc out to the customers.
The department is looking at the new technologies and looking at how we may put it to its best use. What will the cost be? Can we spread it out over departments or agencies? Some of the old trainings will have to be redeveloped or reworked to match a new format.
As with most new things, there are pros and cons. One pro is that costs could be reduced. One con could be losing that face-to-face time: those times when you can look out over an audience and see that someone is just not getting it and needs a little more attention, or the "Aha" moment when you know you've gotten through to them.
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| County Corner—Allen Phillips, Baker County assessor since 1989 |
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| Allen Phillips, Baker County Assessor |
Allen Phillips, Baker County Assessor
I began working for Baker County in 1986 as an appraiser and and became county assessor in 1989, replacing Jerry Cantrell. I'll retire at the end of this term (2008). Kerry Savage, our chief deputy, has filed for the position and is the only candidate running.
As Baker County's assessor, I've encouraged the development of new technology in the assessor's office. Implementing computer-assisted appraisal and advocating for GIS (ORMAP) were instrumental in my office planning process. I've encouraged the staff to take advantage of technology whenever possible in order to provide great customer service and make daily tasks simpler.
Currently, the appraisers are working on set up, which is made difficult with all of the snow. (We are tired of snow and can hardly wait for spring.) We are also training a new data analyst, as Dick Kirby retired the end of March 2008. Trudy Lowery is trying to get an understanding of what the data analyst's job is all about. In February, we hired Kirby Danford as a new appraiser.
We just need to get rid of this white stuff (spring fever), but it looks like the stuff will be here until July. Have a great 2008.
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| Legislative Update |
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John Phillips, Legislative Liaison
The next regularly scheduled legislative session begins January 2009. State boards, commissions, and agencies are required to have legislative concepts submitted to the Department of Administrative Services by April 4 for approval and statewide coordination. The Property Tax Division began its formal review and approval process on February 7 with 13 concepts. At this writing, March 31, five are still in play. The lion's share of these concepts are housekeeping in nature.
At the same time, there are several groups working on concepts to address local government funding in light of the failure of the reauthorization of the federal Secure Rural Schools Act or PL 106-393. The 30-member tax restructure committee led by Lane Shetterly is working through a variety of scenarios. One subgroup led by the Association of Oregon Counties is looking at a total rewrite of the property tax system. There has been talk of a sales tax proposal to either entirely or substantially replace the property tax with the goal of providing significant homeowner tax relief while maintaining necessary local government funding through the sales tax component.
Another group, the Governor's Federal Forest Payments and County Services Task Force, is gathering reports from subgroups on proposals for dealing with the impact of reduced revenues in primarily timber counties across a spectrum of shared service programs, including law enforcement, transportation, health, and property tax administration. Karen Gregory presented the report on the property tax component on March 27.
These workgroup, task force, and subgroup proposals may funnel directly into House and Senate interim committees for consideration as committee bills for the 2009 session. We won't know what proposals are taken up by those committees until later in the fall.
The schedule for the Revenue Department concepts generally is approval by the middle of summer, drafting of the concepts into bill form by the mid-fall, and final submission by December 15. This process ensures that our bills will be pre-session filed and ready for action on day one of the 2009 session.
Stay tuned.
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| My Thoughts |
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Jim Bucholz, PTD Administrator
There's an old saying that has been rattling around in my head over the past few weeks that goes something like, "Men plan, and God laughs." If there's any truth in that old saying, I'm sure that God has been doing plenty of laughing when it comes to my life.
When I came to Property Tax Division in 2001 after spending most of my career in the personal income tax program, I had a plan. Although I felt comfortable and reasonably effective in personal income tax, I realized that I wasn't much help in agency meetings that discussed property tax issues. I wanted to be able to contribute in those meetings and I knew the only way I was going to be able to do that was to immerse myself in the program for a time. Because I had spent a couple of years as an appraiser in the Valuation section in the early '90s, I didn't think I needed too much time. According to my plan, one year in property tax ought to just about do it.
Well, most of you know the story from there. One year in Valuation became two when I realized that there was so much more to learn than I had thought. That was okay, though-it just meant I'd have to change my plan slightly. Then, with the end of two years approaching, I realized that I really enjoyed dealing with property tax issues. The income tax program had interesting issues too, but it just seemed that the added layer of complexity in property tax made it all the more challenging to me. I successfully wrangled a job as section manager of what is now our CDOT (Cadastral, ORMAP, Deferral, Timber) section. One year after that, I transferred into the Assessment and Taxation Standards section, where I spent nearly four years as manager.
Now, as of January 1, I find myself in the Property Tax Administrator's chair. I don't know exactly when it happened, but sometime during the last seven years I switched from being an "income tax guy" to a "property tax guy." Many of you know that, when I was hired for this position, the Personal Income Tax Administrator spot was also open and the two positions were filled in a joint process. When I was asked in the interview which of the two spots I preferred, I didn't even hesitate-I knew I wanted to stay in property tax and I was very grateful that this is where I landed. I'm sure that God must have at least chuckled when I answered!
As I begin this new adventure, I want to formally recognize and thank Karen Gregory for the outstanding work she did as Property Tax Administrator over the last four years. It's never easy taking over for a living legend, but that's exactly what Karen did when she inherited her role from Randy Evers. Randy was terrific for our program and loved by all, so Karen really had her work cut out for her when she began here in January 2004. I believe that as effective as Randy was in improving our program, Karen was able to pick up where he left off and we are in even better shape now than when she took over. I know that she would say her success can be attributed to the vast network of dedicated folks at both the department and county levels, but that would minimize her own contribution for years of leadership and dedication to the property tax program. If I am half as effective here in my tenure as she was in hers, I'm confident that I'll be able to look back with pride at what was accomplished. Thank you so much, Karen, for what you've meant to our program.
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| Linda Blacklock—Learning the ATS Dance |
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Gordon Tiemeyer, ATS
For Linda Blacklock, taking over as ATS program administration and analysis supervisor was an introduction to the other aspects of property tax. There were new steps to learn and different partners to work with. The new dance would be exciting and fun to learn.
Linda's family got her interested in property tax. Her dad, Jim Custis, was an appraiser and later a manager here at Revenue. Linda decided to follow in her father's footsteps and attended training at Chemeketa in their Real Appraisal Program. But Linda decided that she was not really interested in being an appraiser at that time.
It would be another 10 years before she returned to her roots, becoming an appraiser for Klamath County. Linda studied her trade and eventually accepted a position at Linn County. Linn County provided even more experience (as well as her husband, Gary).
Linda came to Revenue in 1991 as an industrial appraiser in the Valuation section. After five years doing industrial appraisal, she moved to the Utility Appraisal team, where she really felt like she had found her niche doing appraisal of communications, transportation, and energy properties in the state. Linda spent more than 10 years working on the utility team, during which time she was promoted to an appraisal analyst 4, team leader.
With all of her knowledge and experience, Linda was encouraged to try for the position of ATS manager. She has found that even though she knew so much, there was so much more to learn, especially with the different aspects of ATS and the customers they serve. Linda has really enjoyed this part of her job. She has found that ATS is filled with persons who have the knowledge and are patient with her in sharing their knowledge as she develops into her new position. It is this new challenge and the steps involved that she enjoys so much.
Why the references to dance in this article? It is a large part of Linda's life outside of Revenue. Linda has a love of dance that is shared with her family of three grown children and three grandchildren. Linda is very active in high school dance team sports and spends many weekends during the school year judging dance team competitions. Most recently, Linda judged the Dance Team State Championships in Portland on March 14 and 15. Linda's daughter, Ashley, is a coach for the South Albany High School Southern Belles Dance Team.
What's on the horizon for Linda and a possible new challenge? She and one of her daughters recently completed and submitted an audition tape for the television show Survivor. Although she doesn't like spiders and snakes, it is the challenge that Linda would enjoy...she thinks!
As one of her employees, I figure that, compared to the challenge of learning about Urban Renewal, Survivor would be a slow dance.
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| OSACA and OACTC 2008 Joint Winter Conference |
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OSACA: Oregon State Association of County Assessors
OACTC: Oregon Association of County Tax Collectors
This winter's conference for county tax collectors and assessors was held jointly in Gold Beach during the middle of January.
Attendees benefited from the networking and continuing education opportunities, not to mention hospitality and social events designed to entertain and build new relationships. Featured during the week were meetings, presentations and activities offering insight to current events and opportunities to exchange ideas. See the "Cartography Breakout Session" article below for an example of one of the specialty "break-out" session agendas.
Following is a photo essay recapping the conference:
 OSACA president Tom Green, Assessor Crook County, open the conference with his invocation. The setting is the Curry County fairground's exhibit hall.
Green introduces the first morning session's retired assessor "Debriefing" panel. Left to right: Jerry Hanson, Jim Gangle, and Ray Erland.
The after-lunch session "County Funding Action Plan/Talking Points" featured:
Jim Bucholz, Property Tax Division administrator...
Karen Gregory, Revenue's deputy director...
Gil Riddell, representative from Association of Oregon Counties...
and Dan Ross, Jackson County assessor (l) and Annette Sprickard, Lane County assessor.
Speakers were Dr. Jeff Kroft, Marion County chief appraiser Shawn Beaton, Linn IT programmer analyst Wolf Dyner, Revenue's Sandi King, and Mike Enberg, first VP of OACTC from Marion County. Conference special interest "break out" sessions included:
Cartography
 Chief appraiser
 Data exchange and tax collection
 John Phillips, Bob Main, and Adam Colby consider an economic forecast presented on the second day as one of several subjects of interest to conference attendees.
 Merri Seaton, DOR cartography unit manager introduces Chautauqua Scholar Robert Hamm, whose presentation was titled "The History of Mapping."
 Jim Kolen, Curry assessor, introduces Tim Brueckner, a Rogue River jet boat pilot, who took attendees on a humorous and informative verbal trip up the river.
 Dave Almond, Revenue's chief information officer, talks with the assessment function attendees about Communication Technology.
 Steve Harris, second from left, Washington County chief appraiser, conducts the second day's break out session meeting for that group.
 Izzy Brock, OACTC president and Curry tax collector, introduces Sgt. Ted Longton, Gold Beach police officer. Sgt. Longton presented training on office security to a tax collectors' break out session near the end of the conference's second day.
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| OSACA 2008 Winter Conference |
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Oregon State Association of County Assessors-2008 Winter Conference
Gold Beach, Oregon
January 14-16, 2008
Cartography Breakout Session
At every winter conference for the Oregon State Association of County Assessors (OSACA), the counties send their cartography staff for their breakout sessions. This year there were speakers who spoke on several different topics that affect assessor's maps and legal descriptions of property. One of the topics was navigability. Dr. Jeff Kroft is the senior policy specialist for the land management division of the Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL) and Mark Schumock is an assistant attorney general in the natural resources section of the general counsel division of the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ). They discussed the processes that are used to determine river navigability. This was a very timely talk as they were just finishing up DSL's study of an 83-mile section of the Rogue River in Jackson and Josephine counties.
Dr. Kroft discussed the federal requirement for determining a stream's navigability and how they applied it to the Rogue River study. He also talked about how the DSL investigated the history of the Rogue and its uses. Mr. Schumock was able to answer many of the legal questions that were asked by the study and how it will affect property in those counties. The cartographers had many questions, especially how this would affect the legal descriptions of property along the river.
The other speaker was Paul Levesque, Tillamook County's chief of staff for the county commissioners. He has also worked as a consultant to counties and law firms on public land issues and complex litigation, authored a two-volume history entitled "A Chronicle of the Tillamook County Forest Trust Lands," and serves on the faculty for the OSU County College.
Mr. Levesque spoke on two separate topics. The first was the history of foreclosure, the processes required by the counties to foreclose on property and their options once they take possession of the property. One of the options is to keep the property for public use, such as the Coos County Forest.
He also spoke about "remnant parcels." These are the small parcels that are sometimes left over when property is subdivided and the legal descriptions inadvertently omit them. This is a problem that needs to be solved by cartographers as the counties must account for all property. Mr. Levesque spoke on how Tillamook County handles these parcels and suggested that all the cartographers consult their own county councils on how to resolve these issues.
The final sessions of the cartography breakout included an update from DOR's CIS Unit on new tools within the ORMAP/ESRI Parcel Editing Tools. This presentation was given by Rod Therriault from DOR and David Cutting from Lane County; Rod and David also answered questions from the cartographers on the use of the tools.
Phil McClellan, the ORMAP coordinator, gave an update of the ORMAP project and its funding. Phil also spoke of a grant application presented to DAS GEO's Framework Program to help aid the counties in developing a cadastral framework that meets the Data Exchange Standards
Steve Lucker from DOR spoke about the continuing effort for cartographer certification. After a two-year pause, the program is again on the department's agenda for development. The current focus is to design a "Level One" introductory course, as well as explore alternatives to training delivery (some web-based classes...?). He was asking for ideas and help in the effort.
Finally, the group got together for a roundtable discussion of issues that the cartographers were having around the state. This is a very useful tool for the cartographers as it is mostly issues that are not unique to the individual counties. This session allows the cartographer to get advice from other counties on how they deal with common problems.
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| IAAO Chapter Reactivated—Rick Schack Elected Chapter President |
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| Columbia River Gorge region will be served by the chapter |
The International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) has a new face in the Northwest. The dormant Oregon chapter has been reactivated as the Columbia River chapter.
It was 10 years ago when the Oregon chapter went quiet following property taxing confusions created under Measure 50.
"Now there is so much new to report with IAAO and the renewed chapter!" reports Carol Judd, DOR's continuing education specialist. Carol is IAAO's regional representative and an International Membership Services Committee member.
"A debt of ‘Thanks!' is owed to Cory Henkelman and Steve Harris (both Washington County), who kept the IAAO spirit alive and protected funds in the old chapter's treasury," Carol explained.
There are others-on both sides of the Columbia River-who have lent their support and insights to the recovery of a viable regional chapter; thus, the new chapter name.
"It was exciting when folks from Clark County, Washington, and its neighbors, plus the Oregon Department of Revenue and several Oregon counties pledged more than mere interest!" Carol recalls.
Following an initial "rekindling" interest meeting in early in 2007, two reactivation meetings were held in October and January. "We celebrated that in less than 12 months from Steve's initial call for commitment to a new chapter-we had begun to roll!" Carol says. "Visits and commitments from the IAAO organization's leaders and staff were a really impressive show of action from HQ!" she emphasizes.
The chapter's new officers are: Rick Schack, DOR (OR), president; H. Mike Webber, chief appraiser Clark County (WA), vice president; Joshua Fleurett, appraiser, Clark County, treasurer; and Demaris Troxell, appraiser, Clark County, secretary.
Rick Shack, Chapter president
Rick says his goals for the new chapter are:
- Fostering pride and professionalism within the assessment and taxation community.
- Building networks that enable us to become more effective.
- Developing skills and applying technologies that enable us to become more efficient.
"I think of these as ‘themes' representing leadership, communications, and education that we intend to promote within the Columbia River Chapter of IAAO," says Rick.
The IAAO organization's mission statement "...is to promote innovation and excellence in property appraisal, assessment administration, and property tax policy through professional development, education, research and technical assistance."
"IAAO has members and chapters in 22 countries-over 7,300 members and growing!" Carol reports.
There are three types of IAAO membership available: REGULAR, AFFILIATE, AND ASSOCIATE. REGULAR is for employees of government jurisdictions or private appraisal firms whose duties are directly related to property tax and administration. AFFILIATE is an organizational membership for those individuals or groups having a specific interest in property tax valuation and policy administration, by application only. ASSOCIATE membership is available to individuals not eligible for regular membership, but who are interested in property tax valuation and/or assessment administration.
Carol is able to offer any new members a 50 percent discount for the first year. Contact her for more IAAO details and the application package. Her phone number is 503-945-8248; her e-mail is carol.k.judd@state.or.us.
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| Comings and Goings |
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Mary Kintner, PTD Administration
New Employees:
Sarah Heinsoo, Administration; Barbara Callahan, Cartography; Matthew Taylor, Cartography; Nick Odom, ATS
Promotions and Transfers:
Vera Carriger, Valuation; Rick Schack, CDOT; Mike Vaughn, ATS
Work out of Class/Temporary Work Assignments:
Kathy Stevens, ATS; Mike Buchanan, Valuation; Vickie Palmer, Valuation; Jim Olheiser, Valuation; Dennis Maurer, Timber
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| Grapevine |
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Grapevine is published by the Oregon Department of Revenue, Property Tax Division.
Editorial Board: Al Gaines; Mary Kintner; Phil McClellan; Robert Motley; Gordon Tiemeyer; Christie Wilson, Lead; and Gary Wright.
To be added to the Grapevine mailing list or to submit articles, e-mail Grapevine, or contact us by mail at:
Oregon Department of Revenue
Property Tax Division
955 Center Street NE
Salem OR 97301-2555
Phone: 503-945-8292
Fax: 503-945-8737
TTY: 503-945-8617
In compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), this information is available in alternative formats upon request by calling 503-378-4988.
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