Ad-Hoc Committee on Reappraisal — Burlington, VT
Date: 2022-07-21
Time: 17:00

July 21, 2022
 Ad-Hoc Reassessment Committee Meeting - Thursday, July 21 @ 5:00PM in
 Bushor Conference Room (City Hall, 1st Floor) and **REMOTE**

@ Click here to view the minutes for this meeting
1. Agenda

 1.01 Adopt the Agenda



2. Minutes

 2.01 Approve Draft Minutes for 2022-03-23



3. Deliberative

 3.01 Review of Charge Given to the Committee by Council Resolution


 2 Signed CC Resolution The Fairness Of The
 Reappraisal Process ANd The Property Tax
 System (Revised.pdf


 3.02 Review of Tasks Given to Individual Committee Members



4. Presentation from City Assessor John Vickery

 4.01 Presentation from City Assessor John Vickery


 2 Review of Burlington’s Reappraisal Project.pdf

5. Any Other Committee Business

 5.01 Any Other Committee Business



6. Adjournment

 6.01 Motion to Adjourn




City of Burlington, Vermont Page 1 of 1

Ad-Hoc Reassessment Committee Meeting - Thursday, July 21 @
 5:00PM in Bushor Conference Room (City Hall, 1st Floor) and
 **REMOTE**
 7/21/2022

AD-HOC REAPPRAISAL COMMITTEE

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Bushor Conference Room and via Zoom

Meeting Minutes

Members Present: James Unsworth (Chair), Joan Shannon, Christopher Haessly, Kevin Stapleton, Daniel Kirk, Jonathan
Chapple-Sokol, David Edwards, Alan Bjerke

Staff Present: John Vickery (City Assessor), Jacob Dorman (Deputy City Assessor), Joseph Dempsey (City Attorney’s Office
Staff)

Others in Attendance: Members of Public: None



Meeting called to order at 5:01 PM.

1.0 Agenda

1.01 Motion to Adopt/Amend Agenda

Motion to Adopt Agenda as is.

Motion by James Unsworth, Seconded by Alan Bjerke

Final Resolution: Motion Passes

Yes: Unanimous.



2.0 Adopt Minutes from 03/23/2022

2.01 Motion to Adopt Minutes from 03/23/2022

Motion to Adopt Minutes from 03/23/2022 without changes.

Motion by James Unsworth, Seconded by Alan Bjerke

Final Resolution: Motion Passes

Yes: Unanimous.



3.0 Deliberative

3.01 Review of Charge Given to the Committee by Council Resolution

James Unsworth: Reviewed lines 82-95 of Council Resolution 6.05 adopted 11/08/2021 that established the Ad-Hoc

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 Ad-Hoc Reassessment Committee Meeting - Thursday, July 21 @
 5:00PM in Bushor Conference Room (City Hall, 1st Floor) and
 **REMOTE**
 7/21/2022
Reappraisal Committee.



3.02 Review of Tasks Given to Individual Committee Members

Daniel Kirk: Jonathan and I already worked with City Assessor’s Office and Clerk/Treasurer’s Office to create a website for
the Committee available under the City Assessor’s site.

Alan Bjerke: Good. I recorded a presentation to help explain the process, but a second taping might be a good idea.

John Vickery: Yes, that sounds good.



4.0 Presentation from City Assessor John Vickery

4.01 Powerpoint Presentation from City Assessor John Vickery

See Powerpoint Presentation.

Video call ended to reset the session timer on Zoom at 5:33 PM. Video Call restarted at: 5:35 PM.

James Unsworth: If everyone is now back, we can keep going.

Vickery: Asked if there were any questions. I was thinking I could put the presentation on the Committee website.

Joan Shannon: Who is included in the Board of Assessors’ hearing process?

John Vickery: The Board of Assessors is myself and Jonathan Chapple-Sokol and we do everything to make sure each
appellee has a hearing.

Joan Shannon: Did Tyler handle the hearings?

Jonathan Chapple-Sokol: Yes, Tyler did the hearings.

John Vickery: Two Board of Assessors members could not handle the 2000 appeals. We might want to establish a larger
Board.

Joan Shannon: Tyler was doing the appeals and it was not transparent. So, the person listening to the appeals was not the
decision maker?

John Vickery: Correct, the hearing officers passed on notes to the decision maker within Tyler.

Joan Shannon: So you weren’t part of all the decisions?

John Vickery: Correct.

Jonathan Chapple-Sokol: Yes, correct.

Joan Shannon: This process needs some work and should be codified. This is where the problems started.

John Vickery: I agree. Covid also ended informal hearings that would have lessened the load.


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 Ad-Hoc Reassessment Committee Meeting - Thursday, July 21 @
 5:00PM in Bushor Conference Room (City Hall, 1st Floor) and
 **REMOTE**
 7/21/2022
James Unsworth: Are informal hearings educational? Is there a grievance process?

John Vickery: Informal hearings are a review of your original Property Record Card. Everyone is given a few moments to
correct simple mistakes or incorrect facts such as number of bathrooms or type of siding. After that, an appeal to the
Board of Assessors is required to change the appraisal.

Alan Bjerke: So, informal hearings would have corrected some factual errors?

John Vickery: Correct. The Board of Assessors would probably have still been overwhelmed even if it was only a thousand
appeals. I will add more information about the informal appeals process to the Powerpoint presentation.

David Edwards: Tyler seemed like they had limited information during the appeals process. Tyler should be fully informed
of the details of an appraisal like how John Vickery would be as an appraiser. We should look at how the contract lays out
the duties of the contractor.

Joan Shannon: The largest problem with appeals was Tyler had no information and the public had to submit information to
them for an appeal. Tyler was lacking the necessary information. Hearing officers had no authority and the decisions
process was unclear.

Alan Bjerke: How about adding three City Councilors to the Board of Assessors during a reappraisal year?

Joan Shannon: It’s not ideal. There might be an awkwardness to having voters’ reappraisal decisions done by Councilors. In
addition, it is a lot of work for Councilors that are already busy. Tyler is capable of addressing the appeals, but they were
uninformed. Appellees left the Tyler hearings thinking they were going to get a tax reduction.

Jonathan Chapple-Sokol: The appeals process was really broken. A lot of the appeals were for errors that informal hearings
would have fixed. The two thousand appeals might have been less if everything before it was clear as well.

Joan Shannon: I just wanted to flag where we should focus.

Alan Bjerke: I agree.

Joan Shannon: Maybe we should rename the Board of Assessors or have a new board created. Do we need to use the
Board of Assessors for this by law?

John Vickery: Yes. But the other problems caused by Covid and virtual hearings along with the short timeline caused more
stress. Thank you for pausing on this.

David Edwards: Maybe we should review the Tyler contract. Maybe the City Attorney can help with getting Tyler more
authority.

Chris Haessly: I would have wanted my appeal handled by a local person rather than a contractor from elsewhere. Maybe
we should hire contractors instead of FTE to assist the City Assessors’ Office. We could make a panel of local folks to
handle appeals.

John Vickery: Thank you. We might want to have a reappraisal manual ready before the appraisals begin.

Alan Bjerke: We could have a report separate from a Property Record Card. Do we have all the data, or is that in the
vendor’s formula?

John Vickery: There are a lot of tables that create a complex formula. We could have a step-by-step process laid out for
the public. The manual would explain what all the adjustments mean. I like the Property Record Card, but the general

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 Ad-Hoc Reassessment Committee Meeting - Thursday, July 21 @
 5:00PM in Bushor Conference Room (City Hall, 1st Floor) and
 **REMOTE**
 7/21/2022
public might not like the cards.

Alan Bjerke: Cards help if you’re experienced in real estate, but it is not the full picture. Does the city actually have all the
data?

John Vickery: Yes, the software system has the formula.

Chris Haessly: Residential and commercial properties were valued differently. It looks like there are there multiple methods
to value commercial properties, could you explain that more?

John Vickery: Commercial properties are usually done by the income method.

Chris Haessly: Let’s look at Buell Street. Only one property is only owner-occupied. Are these other apartment buildings
considered commercial properties?

John Vickery: No, the income approach needs 4 units or more to be commercial. We could have used the same method for
smaller buildings, but we did not.

Chris Haessly: A seven-unit home would be commercial?

John Vickery: Yes, correct. You can call me tomorrow to discuss more on that.

James Unsworth: Do we want to start a new session?

John Vickery: We have 3 minutes left on our Zoom session.

James Unsworth: Thank you John. Any other questions?




5.0 Any Other Committee Business

James Unsworth: I will be out next session. We should choose a chair for that session.

Alan Bjerke: I nominate David Edwards.

Joan Shannon: Seconded.

Yes: Unanimous.



6.0 Adjournment

Motion to Adjourn by James Unsworth, Seconded by Alan Bjerke.

Yes: Unanimous.

Committee Adjourned at 6:12 PM.




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Ad-Hoc Reassessment Committee Meeting - Thursday, July 21 @
5:00PM in Bushor Conference Room (City Hall, 1st Floor) and
**REMOTE**
7/21/2022




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