2014-01-08 Board of Ethics Minutes

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MR. BALSIS: Mr. Drutar? MR. DRUTAR: I would really like to speak on that point. If an unscrupulous appraiser who is assigned to a zone that included their home, set land values, they are also the ones picking up buildings and additions, and no one checks that. That number that’s calculated is a computer model, as they mentioned. But let’s say I’m an unscrupulous person and I added a 20-foot by 20-foot garage. Well, maybe I’ll just say it’s 20-foot by 10-foot. No one’s going out there and checking that. My assessed value is lower. Let’s say I add a whole addition on there, and I fudged the numbers on the measurements. The computer model is just based on the measurements that I took, and no one goes out there and ever, ever checks that. We have zero auditing for checking of the size or grade of dwellings. Maybe it’s supposed to be graded at a 4+, like a Pualani Estates home, but I’m going to go ahead and grade it at a 4- to save myself some money there. No one is ever going to go out and validate that, either. So then you start getting into some really direct ability to change the value of your property, because as the zone appraiser, you get the building permit report that shows all the buildings that you have to add into the system in that zone. There’s no one to check it for you. There’s no one who’s going to come in and audit that. We have no auditing procedures whatsoever. So if someone continues to have their zone as an appraiser, there’s a possibility they could be significantly affecting the tax value of their property moving forward. Again, I’m not saying it happened, but if they never had that zone with their neighborhood—or just the neighborhood, keep all the other neighborhoods around it. Just lose that one, give it to another appraiser, and the County would not be exposed to being duped by somebody. And that’s really what we’re getting at. MR. BALSIS: Okay. MS. NAHOOPII: First of all, that’s not true. There are checks and balances. There is a permit report that’s run. There is Pictometry, which is an edit check that the administration does. But none of that really applies to what the petition was filed on, and I don’t want to get so convoluted that we’re getting far away from what this is. But I just want to clarify there are checks and balances. But you don’t want to hear us say those words, so I don’t know how to say it. There could be an unscrupulous person in the County. It doesn’t have to be an appraiser. It could be anybody throughout the whole County. And so we are held to a different standard than everybody else. I understand that. And there is Pictometry that is checking it. We are trying to really review those. But at the same token, we can’t just go after one person at a time. We have to look at the groups or the neighborhood, because then it’s not a fair and equitable process, and that is what our ordinance requires of us. So I don’t know if there’s anything else. MR. BALSIS: Mr. Henricks, do you have any more questions or comments? MR. HENRICKS: No, I’m lost enough. 25