So, we're looking at that opportunity for not only law firms, but accounting firms, financial firms --
-- and other professional organizations that have minority and women in leadership roles.
Thank you, Councilwoman. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Mr. President. Relative to the recent tax reform measures that passed in Council last year, have you done analysis as the impact on both the -- I guess the BIRT now and wage tax and other taxes? Are we going to factor that in between now and 2017? Because it shows in BRIT, for 66 example, a steady two-and-a-half percent growth over those years. Have we figured out whether or not that takes a hit, the wage goes up? I mean, are we able to predict that or not?
I don't think we specifically looked at whether those -- we didn't ascribe any additional growth in our tax projections to those bills.
I mean, we're hoping they produce extra growth and our consultants look at a whole variety of factors, but, you know, I don't think --
But it would seem that the BIRT would perhaps be impacted negatively while the wage tax may be impacted positively.
Well, let me say, so we did make the change in revenues from just the modifications to the BIRT and the licenses, and so there was an impact there, about $80 million, but we didn't put any supply side affect in, if that answered your question.
Okay. Also, what 67 is the City doing to promulgate the information relative to the two tax reforms? I mean, how are we packaging that to outside firms or outside companies that may not know about it and may want to relocate here as a result of knowing about it?
Yeah, I think both Revenue through its newsletter and Commerce through outreach it does have been telling people about the changes and trying to --
Do Revenue's newsletter go out to anyone other than the people they collect taxes from now?
It goes out to practitioners. So, it would go out to accountants, for example, who would have clients so they would let their clients know. So, yeah, it gets -- it's not just taxpayers.
So, within the region and within New Jersey and Delaware or?
Okay. Overall when you're doing your projections for both the year coming budget and the other four years in 68 the plan, how do you settle on your revenue numbers? What method do you go through to determine in every category of revenue what you expect and how do you -- I mean, is it science, is it art, is it a combination of both?
Yes, yes. On the tax revenues we have our outside consultant who, you know, does their projections and then there is a meeting with local economists and they kind of give feedback on what they think the -- what they think of those projections. And then there is a little bit of kind of looking at history, so it's a combination of a variety of factors.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Council Member Jones.
Thank you, Mr. President. On of your budget detail, 69 Class 200, Office of Property Data, you have a TBD Data Architect Consultant and GSI Database Consultant. First contract is for $95,000, the second contract seems to be for $65,000.
Can you give me some detail on who they are and what actually they do?
Sure. We don't know who they are yet, I mean, because we'll go through a competitive process to figure out what they are.
So, right, like you say, we don't know who they are, there will be a process, but a large part of what they'll do is, and I think this was talked about a little bit in terms of the data and the standards around that data, and so when there is a system that these people, the architect, the architect will -- the data architect, I am sorry, will handle kind of the data side so we kind of 70 would help layout what kind of structure the system would have for the data and what kind of protocols people will have to follow and that they're standard and consistent across all the City departments so that we don't have the inconsistencies we have now, and the GIS Consultant --
When you speak of inconsistencies, what does that mean?
People may have a different address for the same property in some cases. They may have inconsistencies about whether, you know, it's a residential property or a different type of property. They may actually use a different way to address the property. They may start like with a, you know, this is 2013 B, you know, and a street whereas another department puts it in the system as B2013 which sounds like simple things, but then when that kind of thing happens we can't match the data in the system. So, those kind of things. So, that's what I mean by on the data side and the consistencies and the standards that everybody has to follow. 71 And then the GIS database consultant would do something similar but more related to the kind of geographic information, the GIS, what they call parcel layers and kind of pictures of the properties. Councilman JONES: We did a project out in West Philadelphia from 63rd Street to 69th Street looking at potential site assembly for a development, mixed use development we wanted to do, and one of the kind of challenges, and often probably for District Council people, is we had to access two databases to reconcile one property. Does this contract address that?
This will help -- yes, it does. This will help -- this is kind of someone who helps in the planning stage to get to the system that will address those problems that you're discussing, yes.
And will all citizens have access to this or will members of government and members of Council have access? Where will this information -- what are the levels of access? 72
I'm not sure that we have the answer to that yet. I think that could be discussed as we go through the process and determine kind of what it looks like and how access gets controlled or, you know, certainly there is some information that's already available to the public in terms of, you know, property data, but we can figure that out.
And, obviously, I mean, we would like to make the information as public as possible.
When the Council President explores, again, the issue of development districts, and as he's trying to make Philadelphia user friendly for development, some people even believe we may be seeing the beginnings of the end of the recession. So, the idea there is build baby build, but we want to take away the impediments for potential developers. The Site Assembly acknowledged about that is an expensive process, and if they have choices, Montgomery County, Delaware County, other counties, then 73 Philadelphia County in order to be competitive with them has to be able to provide that information in a timely fashion so that we can get things built, shovels in the ground, and taxes paid.
Thank you, Councilman. Chair recognizes Council Member Green.
Thank you, Mr. President. I think the other information that we're looking for is Global Insights report.
And I am going to follow-up with OPA on the questions I asked about that stuff. Are you going to be here for that testimony or?
I could ask the question twice. It looks like several city-wide business application initiatives identified by OIT would fall in the finances area.
Including the cashiering system and the Admin Modernization Phase III Financial Data Warehouse System. I know you've talked about this. Can you detail which of the prioritized projects fall within your oversight?
Sure. So, there's Cashiering and Revenue Modernization, which are both in Revenue. There is the CAMA/OPD System, which is the Office of Property Data and the Office of Property Assessment, and then there's the Legacy Modernization which includes a number of finance-related income processes.
So, will these change the work flow practices in these areas?
Have you done an analysis of how that will result in savings or the ability to have people perform other functions?
We are actually in the process of doing that for the various investments.
It varies by project. We can -- I mean, for each one it's going to be different.
You testified that these systems would yield additional or increased revenue collections.
And, so, does the five-year plan revenue assumption take any of this into account?
No, because we don't have good projections for what that will mean yet.
But you intend -- when will you have good projections? 76
As we get through the planning process. So, we're -- I mean, I think we're months away on each one of these.
Okay. Contract spending, do you have any unencumbered Class 200 professional services contract funds for FY12?
Okay. So, we'll just ask you to provide a list of that to the Chair as with all the other departments.
Thank you, Councilman. Any other questions of these witnesses? (No response). 77
He's teeing up for the next witness I see. There being none, thank you very much for your testimony.
We will now ask the Office of Property. Ready, sir? Good morning. Please proceed.
Good morning President and Members of City Council. I am Richie McKeithen, Chief Assessment Officer for the Office of Property Assessment also known as OPA. Here with me today are four members of my senior management team. They are Michael Piper, Real Property Assistant Administrator; Jean Machiz, Real Property Assistant Administrator; Veronica Daniel, Administrative Service Director, and Larry Saltzman, Director of Information Technology for OPA. We are here to testify on the proposed 2013 fiscal year operating budget. OPA is primarily charged with discovering, listing, and valuing all of the real property in the City of Philadelphia in a 78 fair and equitable manner. Additionally, OPA is tasked with providing a response to real property tax appeal cases, applying real property tax exemptions, and administering the Real Property Tax Abatement Program. There are 579,383 parcels of real property in the City of Philadelphia. These parcels include residential, condominium, multi-family, large apartment complexes, retail, hospitality, office, industrial, warehouse, hospital, government (City, State and Federal), religious, exempt and non-exempt property uses. For fiscal year 2013 we are requesting from Council a general fund budgetary allowance of $11,714,752. Class 100 Employee Compensation, et cetera, is 218 full-time positions. Class 200, Professional Service, and Class 300 and Class 400 supplies and equipment for a total of 11,714,752. This is a $2.6 million increase over fiscal year '12 estimated obligations of $9,105,882. The increase is for full funding of 218 budgeted positions and for additional 79 property assessment consultant services. The OPA's disadvantaged business participation, also known as DBE, rate for fiscal year 2011 was 33 percent. The Department expects 28 percent participation for fiscal year 2012. During fiscal year 2013 the OPA anticipates that it will require contractual services for the full value reassessment project, which includes sketching, measuring, et cetera. Vendor availability is not yet known at this time, however, OPA will continue to work with the Office of Economic Opportunity to best meet the opportunities available and fully support the Administration's percent goal. 15 The Office of Property Assessment 16 continues to strive to reach its goal of 17 valuing all real property parcels throughout 18 the City of Philadelphia in a fair and 19 equitable manner and at 100 percent of fair 20 market value. 21 In order to reach this goal, OPA has 22 conducted the following steps: 23 Step one, researched numerous real 24 property sale transactions that have occurred 80 over the last few years in an attempt to estimate the direction and pace of the real estate market. Step two, conducted field inspections in over 75 percent of the residential parcels throughout the City to obtain vital information such as property condition, size, and current use. Step three, reviewed thousands of permits from the Department of License and Inspection that have been taken out by property owners. Additionally, requests for income and expense data which only captures the income stream relating to the real property have been mailed to property owners of various hotels, office buildings, multi-family complexes, strip malls, industrial warehouses in an effort to ensure that those properties are also assessed in a manner that reflects fair and true market value. The budgetary funding that OPA is requesting will allow the department to ensure that it reaches it goal of fair and equitable 81 assessments that represent true market value using methodologies that follow industry standards. Thank you for your consideration. I'm available to answer any questions that you have today.
Thank you so much for your testimony. Mr. McKeithen, are you enjoying your stay here in Philadelphia?
All right. Good answer. A couple of questions. Mr. McKeithen, if you're aware, low income housing tax credits were made available to promote affordable housing in the City of Philadelphia and all throughout the nation. And given the funding source for that housing and the controls relating to cost associated with rents, it's essentially rent controlled housing so it basically flattens out value because you can only charge so much over a period of time, in most cases 15 years during 82 the term of the tax credit, in prior years when we've been dealing with tax credit deals we've had to negotiate on a case by case basis with the City of Philadelphia and the developer to determine the value of the property and we had this kind of informal understanding with the prior individual in the comparable position, it was a different name then, and I think we may have sent you a couple of emails from Mr. Wetzel from my staff.
Is your office prepared to formalize that process so we don't have to every time a tax credit bill 15 comes up we have to have this issue?
And we actually had a meeting with Mr. Wetzel and we came to the conclusion that the best way to look at these properties is through an income type of approach. What we're going to do, right now 83 we're in the process of gathering up all of the properties that we want to request income expense data from property owners that we're going to look at that valuation approach to value their property, and so what we were going to do is take the list that we had and compare it, we are going to ask, we had spoken with Mr. Wetzel, and he was going to give us a list of properties that he knew that were in this situation and cross reference them and then send out requests for property owners to send us the information so we can value their property accordingly.
On an individual basis per property or income restrictions as it relates to the rent paid by the occupant?
Right. The rent paid by the occupant will be totaled up and including the income and expense form just for the real property. So, the property owner will not send us anything that's outside the realm of what they're getting for rents and things like that and then we'll take all that into 84 consideration and value the properties accordingly because there are some circumstances which are different from a typical income producing property that those properties suffer with, so.
Okay. All right, okay. Yeah, because they're pretty -- the rent requirements are consistent, so I would anticipate it would be easier to do the analysis --
The difficult part about it, and Herb is going to work with us on this, is that all the property owners have to understand that they have to give us the information for us to be able to properly value.
Yeah, we're looking at May and then getting them back by June.
Okay, 85 because we have some announcements for tax credit deals coming down the pike real soon and applications maybe a month or two later for new credit deals, so we want to make sure that we have that inflow, please.
Thank you so much. In your testimony you stated that 75 percent, thereabouts, the field inspections are completed.
What type of data is currently available for analysis.
Right now we're just collecting characteristic, data on characteristics, like condition of a property, verifying some square footage, making sure we have the proper address or the address of record, looking at things that would add value to the property. So, what you would see right now in our database are things like if a property has 86 a garage we want to record that. If a property is in excellent condition and looks like it has been remodeled, we want to record that. If a property is actually smaller than what we have on our records by a great deal, we want to record that. That's all we would have right now.
When will the additional percent be complete? 12
Okay. The 15 information you have now, is it done by ZIP 16 code or Council district, if we were to ask for 17 information just to get a sense of the 18 characteristics as you say? 19
We have it by GMA, 20 which is geographical mapping area, which is 21 similar to a neighborhood. GMAs are little 22 districts that we see typical market activity 23 and so we have it broken down by that. 24
And we can 87 kind of understand by neighborhood? You said by neighborhood.
Yeah, GMAs might straddle a typical neighborhood. Like, for example, Mt. Airy might be composed of several GMAs. Chestnut Hill definitely might make up several GMAs, but GMAs are things that make it easier for us to define market value and give things credit where they deserve and things of that value.
When do you anticipate you'll start getting actual numbers?
I am looking at starting to run actual numbers by May, mid May on the GMAs that we have completed. After we finish completing a GMA with field inspections we want to look at some boundary things and make sure the boundaries are as accurate as possible and then from that point in time we start running models. So, by mid May I am looking at having some information to share with Mr. Dubow about what we're finding out there.
So, mid 88 May, that would be around the time that we normally wrap up our budget process. Is there any way we can get snap shots of that particular phase of your analysis prior to mid may, because, as you know --
I know you're not in a vacuum that there is a significant concern about wrapping up this process from the Council perspective without having a real sense of the actual values and what we'll ultimately be voting on in the budget process.
We're moving as swiftly as we can. I don't want to commit to you and then not be able to deliver. Every week, every two weeks, I give my progress to Mr. Dubow. I would be able to say for certain if there weren't more things we weren't finding every step of the way that, you know, we need to actually take time and correct data and things like that, so as we continue to progress, I'm working as fast as I possibly can, I will give you what I have as early as 89 possible, but I can't say for sure right now as of today.
All right. I appreciate your not wanting to commit to a date that you're not sure that you can meet. I can respect that. In the budget details, you budget $1 million for property assessment consulting services. What is the purpose of that?
Right. Part of the valuation process is to get as accurate a square footage on the property as you can and it's not always as simple for some of our more difficult properties to measure. Some of our properties are freestanding single family residential properties that have a lot of curvaceous angles and things like that. So, when we started going out in the field and we started doing the fieldwork, I polled my evaluators on their comfort level with measuring some of these type of properties, and so the overwhelming response was, you know, I saw that I needed to get some more expertise in measuring some of those properties, and so 90 that's what that money is for. There is an RFP that will be released for appraisal firms that do this type of work to come in and measure these properties and make sure that we got them nailed down.
No, it will be released. We're putting some finishing touches on.
Pull a tape, take a tape measure and measure around the exterior of a property and subtract for any overhangs and areas that aren't finished square footage.
And that's the sole function that's being performed by this 91 outside --
Well, this company will not only do that, but they'll provide a sketch of the particular parcel and that sketch will have the square footage and a design of the property.
Thank you, Councilman Green. Chair recognizes -- (Off the record). Councilman, would you like to continue, we seem to have --
Thank you. Point of information moved me to the bottom when I was at the top. I appreciate your keeping an eye on that. I want you to do something which I think it will be very hard for someone from the Administration to do and imagine I know nothing, so I would like to walk through a day in the life of an assessor. I would like to get a better 92 understanding of how OPA is determining property values. So, could you describe just in your own words the day in the life of the various different levels of employees that you have and what they do in order to get us to where we're going.
All right. That might take some time, but I'll start off with the evaluators and work my way from there. An evaluator is an individual that is charged with valuing a real property throughout the City of Philadelphia, and we have them broken down into various units. An evaluator for a commercial maybe different from an evaluator for residential, but effectively a residential evaluator will come into work, report in on a day that's not a field day, report to their supervisor. One of my biggest charges is that they return phone calls and things like that, emails. So, they'll check their technology for any phone calls and any emails or any correspondence from a taxpayer. They'll look at any inquiries they may have outstanding to get back to a taxpayer, handle a 93 question, and then they'll dive into the actual evaluation part of the work. As I mentioned before, GMAs are areas that we distinctly have as many neighborhoods and give all types of information on what properties should be, distinct characteristics of what properties should be grouped together, and so an evaluator will take the GMA that they're working on and they will look to see where they are. Right now we're doing field inspections, so everything is about collecting characteristics. So, if they went out the previous day, they will look to enter the characteristics that they have collected from the field into our system. Part of the process is that we have to have all the characteristics and information loaded into the system so it will matter, so it will count, and so that might be what an evaluator residentially does for the better part of their day. If they have a field day, they will go out to the field, they'll take the GMA, the GMAs are in binders and so they will start on a 94 particular street.
So, sir, before we get to the field day, in the office day, when you say they look at information about their GMA, what are they looking at? Are they looking at a computer database? What data did they start with? Is it the data that the BRT produced and made available in 2008? Is it different, that was in the CAMA System, is it different data? So, like what are they -- what does that mean?
Okay. They're looking at several different types of databases. We have Trend, which is commonly known as the multiple listing service, so it depends on what they're doing. If they're looking at sales, they're going to go log into Trend and they'll see what sold in their particular GMA.
But I mean what were they assigned to do? What is expected of them when they're not in the field that day?
All of the evaluators are assigned GMAs. So, what is expected of them is that they, one, come into work and 95 check their email and things like that and return phone calls.
Two, report into their supervisor to see if anything specific --
Not that, we're talking about what they do when they set up their desk
Okay, three, they log into one of several systems, one being VSAM, which is a system that we currently use. Evalassist, which is another system we currently use. Trend, which is another. We have several different databases that they may log into to set up their work station to begin working.
But what does begin working mean? Do they randomly choose properties to look at? Are they assigned properties to look at? Are they given a list of properties to look at and evaluate by a supervisor? How do they determine what to look at? 96
They are all assigned GMAs and they are working on one particular GMA at a time, so they're going to pick up with that GMA where they left off.
So, they're going through every property in a GMA by block, by value?
In what order are they assigned those properties by the --
No, they don't make up anything themselves. The GMAs are broken down into blocks. They're in binders, typical, similar to the binder that the young lady has before her right there, and they are organized into blocks and they are going to go down each property that they had seen the day before and may have jotted down information. They have field sheets that they have collected information on and they're going to 97 make sure that that information is entered into the system.
If you could have someone bring it over, I will come back and we'll pick this up. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Councilman Green. We will now recognize Councilman Greenlee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everybody. I just want, Mr. McKeithen, first I want to follow-up on one of the answers to Council President Clarke's questions on this whole timeline thing. I know you said you have certain information ready by a certain time. I guess my question is when, just so I am clear, will you have samples available that you can give us 98 from different parts of the city so we can kind of get a general idea about where this is going?
Right. As I was alluding to, I don't want to commit to that. I won't have anything -- I can't imagine having anything until May, some time in May, and that depends on what happens today. Every day I come into work I oftentimes run into roadblocks, so, you know, it's hard to commit to anything.
I want to add one thing. What we will try to put together for you is an analysis that shows average assessed values and market values now in neighborhoods and how that compares to sale prices. That won't be exactly what happens with assessments, but it can give you some general idea of where things are.
I'm sorry. Say that one more time just so I'm clear.
So, you get average market value now in GMA and then average sale price, 99 so when the assessment process is done the assessed value will be closer to where the sale price is. It won't be exact because there are other factors, but that at least will give you a sense of where things are headed.
I guess that's helpful. I guess I would have to see it to understand what you're saying.
No, I appreciate that. And as far as, Mr. McKeithen, about what you just said every day something else comes up, this whole problem with the Steb ruling, and I understand now that you're going to have some of your people out there, am I 100 right, to say kind of checking out the appeals that are presently out there; is that right?
Well, we had approximately 2,000 appeals, and so a lot of those appeals have been heard already and so we have to work with the Board to see -- because we now have a new ruling on the CLR -- exactly how they're going to handle possibly rehearing, how they're going to deal with the cases that have been heard already.
The reason I bring that up, again, talking about timeline, does that then push -- because I know you were saying, I am sorry to interrupt, but I think the last I heard as far as having the property values for next year should be somewhere you said October?
Okay. And how does this affect that, this whole Steb issue affect that?
Everything that occurs is a possible risk to us being pushed back 101 because the same people that do the appeals are the same people that do the fieldwork.
That's what I mean, yeah. And the reason I bring it up because usually the notices go out late August, right, I mean that's usually the way it works, right? And you have to appeal by the first Monday of October, right?
So, everything obviously is getting pushed back, if my math is right, at least about six weeks or so, right?
And wouldn't you expect, is it fair to say, you're going to get more appeals this time than normally because of such a difference?
Right. So, again, not to belabor the point, but that timeline, given that the bills have to come out in what, December, it sounds awful problematic. 102
Well, we've worked out something with the Revenue Department, Mr. Dubow can speak to that, but the bills will be sent out during their normal time period as far as I've been advised so far, so.
-- consideration given on the amount of appeals they'll be.
If someone has an appeal when this appeal has been settled the taxpayer will get an adjustment one way or another on a bill.
Okay. And do you have any general idea about the number of appeals? I mean, have you given any thought of an estimate of that?
Well, seeing how we have never done a reassessment in the City of Philadelphia, especially of this magnitude, that's kind of hard to judge. I don't have any real historical data that even matches up to what we're doing. 103
I didn't know if you somehow thought of an estimate about how much it might be. I know it's hard, I understand. I am just wondering if you thought about that.
Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping that it will stay reasonable within industry, you know, standards of some degree, but --
I can't say because we've never done, I have nothing historically to go by.
Okay. I hear you. I'll come back. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Chair -- you know what, real quick, before I go to the next member. I want to ask a question about other municipalities that have gone to this system, actual value major overhaul of the taxing system, and a member or two have referenced 104 other locations where this has happened and there was major responses from the constituency. Are you familiar with this having been done in any other city in the recent past and the impact on a comparable city or larger urban city?
I haven't seen a case where, recently where, we're going not just actual value, but full blown reassessment of doing that and actual value. I haven't seen many cases, if all of that. We have looked for cases where people that have gone to actual value and they have done it so long ago that it's somewhat hard to even compare. I know Washington, DC went to actual value back in the late '70's when they got home rule. You just don't have a lot of empirical data to crunch to get an idea. I can tell you based off of talking to a lot of your constituents throughout the city as I do town hall meets and things like that, that, you know, there's more of a fear of what people will pay versus what their assessed 105 value is and what it will be because a lot of people know that they're assessed value in a lot of areas are somewhat low; however, everything that I've gotten back as far as questions have been what am I going to pay and that sort of thing which Mr. Dubow and his team handle.
So, because you've been unable, and I don't know if that has been the mission to determine if any other places, you just may know from an historical perspective being in the industry, I guess that there has been no analysis done in terms of what the impact might be on the City of Philadelphia --
-- to try to get more of that information. I know we're looking at Allegheny County.
If I didn't bring it up, Councilman Kenney was going to 106 bring it up.
I know we're looking at Allegheny County and we're crunching some of the information that they've given us, but we haven't come to any conclusions as of yet, so.
All right. Okay. All right. I'll be interested to know that. The Chair recognizes Council Member Oh.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. We discussed this before, but I would like to get your comments in terms of, you know, my concern which I would like to state again and see how you will respond to it at this time. It may not change. I think there are two things that are of concern to me and many of the people that I speak with. One is that there have been statements made prior to this entire process coming to a conclusion as to the amount of money that is anticipated to be forthcoming in next year's taxes, real estate taxes, coupled 107 with the fact that we went through a real estate bubble in the city, as did much of the country, that was followed by a dramatic drop in the economy that I think is somewhat particular. And I think the concern is that, you know, people have a piece of property that they have done no additions to, that they have not invested money in any way to make it of higher value to them, they have a limited amount of income, and so does everybody else in their neighborhood, and under those circumstances they're not seeing an increase in the quality of life related to they're property or their neighborhood. And a third-party comes in and says your property is now going to be worth this much more and you should pay this much more. I think there is really two issues. One is, you know, the credibility of the assessment under those circumstances and the accuracy of the assessments under the those circumstances since there seems to be at least from my perspective a certain amount of subjectivity into how you're going to evaluate 108 real estate. And could you address those two concerns?
Okay. I'll do the best I can. We're going to value the property using industry standards that any assessment office -- assessment office in the country, let alone the world, would use. We are just looking at data, sales, condition, size, things like that. We don't, as an office, get into affordability and issues of that nature. Mr. Dubow handles that. We're going to be looking at the most recent data, so we will capture whatever the most recent fluctuations were and they will be in our values. The credibility will be there because we will be able to show you sales that have occurred to typical properties, sales that have occurred to atypical properties, and based on the type property you have this is what your property could sell for. And that's all we do. I mean, we looking at data and looking at the property and assign a value and the credibility, I believe, will be in the fact 109 that we've used these things to demonstrate what your property is worth versus the value that's on there now that in a lot of cases is no where close to what it would sell for.
A lot of cases throughout the city we have values on property that are not anywhere close to what they would sell for.
I can't say which way. I've seen a lot of low value properties and we're going to get closer to what that property would actually sell for, so the credibility, and as far as I'm concerned, is we're using industry standards and industry techniques that other assessment offices throughout the country use to place a value on property and the proof will be in what you see properties sell for relative to our assessments. We have statistical measures after we're done with a reassessment to demonstrate the quality of it, and, you know, we'd be more than happy to share 110 that with the public when we're done.
Okay. So, if you assess the value of a property in a certain neighborhood, and when you're done assessing its value, let's say it was $60,000 and now it's evaluated at $120,000, after you're done that evaluation you're going to be able to show that that property and properties like that will actually sell for 120,000.