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STUDY OF AN EMENT
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WELD COU , C ORADO
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NELSON, HALEY, PATTERSON & QUIR ; .-GREELEY GRAND JtminIAN_ COLO.
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7004:-3
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THE STUDY OF
THE FEASIBILITY AND USE OF
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
FOR
WELD COUNTY, COLORADO
October 1 , 1970
Project No. 69 15 515
Nelson, Haley, Patterson and Quirk, Inc.
Architects-Engineers-Planners
Offices in Greeley and Grand Junction, Colorado
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The following persons made especially helpful contributions of information
and advice relevant to this report:
Weld County Assessor's Office
George E. Barber, Assessor
Dorothy M. Allen, Deputy Assessor
Ardie McLeland
Colorado Tax Commission
George Hirshfield, Senior Property Appraiser
John Williams, Senior Property Appraiser
El Paso County
Millard Post, Assessor
Richard Vogel , Data Management Associates
Harry Bliss, Data Management Associates
Burroughs Corporation
K. R. (Ken) Sheffer
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Section Title Page
I INTRODUCTION 1
Purpose 1
Background
Conclusions 3
II AUTOMATED CALCULATIONS OF APPRAISED VALUES Scope of Study 6
Current Approaches 6
Auto-Appraisal System Development 7
Test Property Sampling 8
Data Selection and Coding 8
Data Analysis 10
Program Development 13
System Evaluation 14
Summary
16
III THE WELD COUNTY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM General Structure 17
Existing File Maintenance Routines 19
File Documentation Routines 21
IV POTENTIAL DATA APPLICATIONS FOR PLANNING,
PROGRAMMING, AND BUDGETING
Objectives 23
Operations Monitoring 23
Reports to County Commissioners 25
Report to School Districts 31
_ Planning Data Systems 32
Transportation Study Requirements 33
Preparation of Reports, Land Use, and
Transportation Data 36
_ V RECONFIGURATION OF WELD COUNTY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
Data Needs 41
Examination of Compatability of Extended Data and
Manipulation Demands and Current
Weld County System 53
VI SUMMARY OF APPROACHES TO DATA PROCESSING Auto-Appraisal Alternatives 65
Accounting 67
LIST OF TABLES
Table No. Title Page
1 NUMBER OF SAMPLE PROPERTIES BY CATEGORY 11
2 COEFFICIENT OF APPRAISAL EQUATIONS FOR
EACH PROPERTY CATEGORY 12
3 GENERALIZED FILE MAINTENANCE SYSTEM 18
4 (SAMPLE REPORT) COMMISSIONERS ' REPORT FOR 1970. 29
5 ELEMENTS OF PERIODIC PLANNING REPORTS 37
6 TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE PLANNING FILE . . . 38
7 REAL PROPERTY DATA ITEMS BY APPLICATION 42
8 DATA ITEMS AFFECTED BY SELECTED ACTIONS 48
9 CHARACTERISTICS OF BASIC ASSESSMENT
REPORTING DOCUMENTS 52
SECTION I
INTRODUCTION
PURPOSE
It is intended that the results of this study provide guidelines and methods
for developing a management information system, via the use and expansion of
the existing Weld County assessment file. To accomplish this analysis , the
content of the Weld County assessment file was examined, as well as present
updating procedures. Potential data users needs , such as school districts,
utility companies, and other County agencies, were explored to determine the
relative benefit of structuring new files for their usage. In addition,
methods of automating, updating, and retrieval of the file data was explored
as a means of making maximum use of the available data.
BACKGROUND
The rapid rate of growth being experienced in Weld County, along with fore-
casts of anticipated growth, conspires with growing administrative tasks ,
making the management of data increasingly more complex. The assessment
process alone is confronted with an increase of 38,000 parcels of land to
manage between 1970 and 1990. (The 1970 Weld County population yields
approximately 50,000 parcels. A conservative 1990 estimate of 150,000
persons could yield 88,000 parcels . )
The assessment function is concerned with three major areas of responsibil -
ity; appraisal , reporting, and accounting. If data management can be
employed to either relieve the increasing work load, or improve the product
of the assessment responsibility, it will occur in these three areas.
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This study will specifically report on basic objectives for improvement
of each of the areas of responsibility as follows :
Functional Area Objective
Appraisal Automated calculation of RCNLD
(replacement-cost-new-less-depreciation)
of residential properties .
Reporting The preparation of planning data and
the codification of data for special
projects . -
Accounting Continuous updating of real estate data
and the storage and updating of non-
assessment data.
Appraisal - The examination of an approach to calculate residential
appraisals must realize the practical constraints of data limitations due
to the complex variation in types of data, as well as realizing limita-
tions of local processing capabilities. The system discussed in Part II
may be readily refined to serve the particular characteristics of any
Colorado County currently utilizing data processing procedures and equip-
ment. The purpose of the examination of this task is not, however, to
suddenly recommend a conversion of any county to any single system, but
to evaluate the feasibility of an automated process and to anticipate the
demands which such a process may be expected to make on the rest of the
assessment system.
Reporting - Similarly, the reporting responsibilities of the Assessor must
be carefully considered in the evaluation of the total system. These
responsibilities , which range from long-established State requirements (e.g.
preparation of the tax roll , notices of increased valuation) to the rela-
tively new (e.g. lists of non-resident property owners to the Internal
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Revenue Office) and the less formal requests from County agencies for data
related to physical and financial planning. The past inflexibility of
existing assessment accounting systems, which includes file types and organ-
izations, and process routines; has greatly magnified the difficulty of
generating such reports. The fact that many reports potentially valuable
to the Assessor, as well as a variety of outside users, have not been devel-
oped may be attributed in large part to this problem of inflexibility.
Accounting - The accounting function is one of the Assessor's largest and
most important tasks, and the one most traditionally beset by partial solu-
tions. This function represents the tie for monitoring physical and economic
and the process of reporting the assessed values to the proper parties; be
they State, local , or private. The success of this function is dependent on
both the cooperation and interest of potential users to make use of the data;
as well as assisting in the preparation and updating of data, putting it in
a form which can be codified to the system.
CONCLUSIONS
This study has yielded the following conclusions and recommendations :
A. Current and future growth in the number of properties, and increasing
rates of change in the use and characteristics of these properties ,
will require increased use of automated data processing techniques by
the Weld County Assessor's office. The use of these techniques will
reduce the growth of the workload as well as resulting in a product
which is improved by being more consistent and more current.
B. Because of the same growth and change, data collected by the Assessor
in the assessment process will become increasingly important to the
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County Commissioners and other operating and planning offices responsible
for the design and implementation of future policies and actions.
Among the specific applications which should be carefully considered is
the development of a process to relate assessment data to traffic zones.
This data could be suitable for current county road and highway planning,
as well as for future use in a regional transportation study. In addi-
tion, this data could be utilized for school location planning, utility
demands , recreation planning, welfare planning, law enforcement, and
other functions both public and private who rely on regional data to
assist in their decision making process.
C. To properly anticipate these needs , the County should undertake to
identify specific data items required for each application and the type
and extent of preliminary processing which may be necessary to present
the data in suitable forms.
D. Data already being maintained in the Assessor's real estate file may be
utilized to provide periodic reports on existing development and devel-
opment trends to the commissioners and other agencies on a limited basis.
E. The current structure of the existing real estate record file should be
reviewed toward an evaluation of alternative structures to provide the
most efficient response to the future demands of a revised appraisal
system and planning reports as well as current assessment functions .
F. In addition to data already maintained within the assessment file for
current accounting purposes, considerable data, of great potential to
the County Commissioners and other users, will ultimately be required
for use in a State or local automated appraisal system.
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G. The development of a system for the automated calculation of residential
appraisals is technically feasible. The automated approach contains
significant potential for reducing variability of appraisals by reducing
the interval between appraisals, and decreasing the sensitivity of
appraisals to subjectively measured data. Efficiency and consistency
offer the greatest products of this type of system.
H. The State parcel numbering system should be applied to the automated
real property file as soon as possible to permit the Assessor to query
the file for information relevant to his own operations , as well as for
the preparation of spatially identified information for other uses.
The present system of relating information to name and legal description
is cumbersome and inefficient and, at the same time, extremely difficult
to manage for specific units such as census districts or traffic zones.
All parcels in the County should be numbered in conformance with the
State numbering system.
I. Steps should be taken to permit the real property file to be related
to the 1970 census . This will involve two principal steps :
The phasing of post tax notice updates; updates reflecting changes to
properties prior to March 31 should be entered to the file and an
analysis file created from this partially updated file.
The development of a system for the assignment of real property
schedules to census tracts and blocks. This may be based on either
street address or parcel number.
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SECTION II
AUTOMATED CALCULATION OF APPRAISED VALUES
SCOPE OF STUDY
The intent of this study is to explore techniques for the automatic
calculation of residential real property appraisals . An appropriate
launching point is to review two of the principal problems of every
assessment office:
1 . Maximizing the effectiveness of limited resources (time and
personnel ) , and;
2. Minimizing variability in the appraised values of comparable
properties .
CURRENT APPROACHES
The extent of the relationship between these two areas of concern is con-
siderable. Presently used replacement-cost-new-less-depreciation (RCNLD)
and estimated sales price (ESP) appraisal techniques are based on collec-
tions in the field of large quantities of data which are subsequently
manipulated, with the aid of an extensive set of directories, to yield an
estimated value.
The number of data items required by these processes , the fact that many
necessitate subjective determinations, and the great many calculations
and table look-ups required to generate each estimate, result in severe
time demands on personnel . Further, the need for subjective data greatly
increases the possibilities for inaccuracies in the appraisal of each
property. This problem is compounded by the fact that an extensive length
of time required by each appraisal means that the Assessor must use a
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number of appraisers to keep up with workloads. The addition of each new
appraiser greatly increases the extent of variability in the subjective
data which is so important to traditional RCNLD and ESP techniques. —
We have, therefore, sought to develop and evaluate an appraisal system —
which would minimize the number of persons necessary and which would
permit the generation of appraisals with objective data only. It should
be clear that other benefits may also be expected to accrue from any —
decrease in the man-time required by each appraisal . Principle among
these would be the ability to conduct more frequent reappraisals , thus
minimizing inequitable situations which might result from variation in —
appraisal ages.
AUTO APPRAISAL SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
The system developed as a result of this effort is based on the generation
of careful estimates of appraised value for a relatively small set of —
selected samples of properties with known characteristics. Determined
relationships between these characteristics and the estimates can then be
applied to the same characteristics of the remaining properties to produce
equitable appraisals throughout the assessment area.
A major task in the study has been the identification of relationships
between property characteristics and appraised values for a sample of prop-
erties as recorded in the Weld County assessment files. This task has been —
executed in several distinct but closely related phases :
1 . Selection and preparation of sample properties for analysis.
2. Determination of appraisal groups within which the relationships —
between property characteristics and values may be expected to
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be constant;
3. Identification of relationships implied by properties in each group;
4. Evaluation of identified relationships ; and,
5. Application of relationships to yield appraised valuations.
TEST PROPERTY SAMPLING
Five hundred properties were selected for use in analysis. The selection
of these properties was governed, in part, by an attempt to provide a pro-
portional representation of each of the residential property types existing
within the City of Greeley. Thus, properties were selected to populate
each of the six "design-material-construction-quality-grades" into which
each property may be placed by the appraiser. Certain bias may have been
introduced to the sample by utilization of this sampling procedure, but
the significance of the "quality-grade" item in the Weld County process and
the difficulty of acquiring data from existing files according to other
criteria, dictated the continued use of "quality-grade" butressed by addi-
tional field inspection.
DATA SELECTION AND CODING
The field (or appraisal) cards for the selected properties were then pulled
and selected data (see illustration) coded, keypunched, and verified for
each property.
During the data collection process , the punched cards thus produced were
submitted to two computer programs which performed certain logical checks
and reformated the data for analysis. Supplementary output of these programs
included measures of the extent to which each quality-grade class and various
age categories were represented within the sample. Further properties were
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then selected to increase the number of samples in the less well represented
ages and classes . (These were, generally, the older ages and lowest and
highest grades .)
Data Extracted from Appraisal Card for Analysis
File Number
Name of Current Owner
Year of Last Sale
Reported Price at Last Sale
Year of Last Appraisal
Lot Dimensions or Area
Appraised Value - Land
Appraised Value - Improvements
Appraised Value - Total
Quality Grade
Number of Stories in Principle Building
Number of Living Units —
Number of Rooms
Use Code
Construction Code
Quality Code
Condition Code
Foundation Material and Grade
Exterior Material and Grade
Roof Design and Grade
Roofing Material and Grade
Floor Material and Grade
Interior Wall Material and Grade
Plumbing Elements (number of each) —
Heating Elements (number of each)
Cooling Elements (number of each)
Area of First Floor
Area of Second Floor
Area of Half Story
Area of Sub-Basement
Area of Unfinished Basement
Area of Finished Basement
Area of Finished Attic
Total Area of Porches
Actual Year of Construction
Adjusted Year of Construction
Depreciation Year
Normal Age (at time of last appraisal )
Percent Good
Obsolescence Due to Condition
Functional Obsolescence
Economic Obsolescence
Adjusted Percent Good
Replacement Cost New Less Depreciation (principle building)
Value of Other Improvements
- 9 -
DATA ANALYSIS
The quality-grade groups by which the data had been originally selected
were initially utilized as analysis groups for the study of property-
value relationships. However, early regression analysis and computer
plots of selected data items indicated that the hypothesized relationships
were not so homogeneous as had been hoped within these groupings.
The data was, therefore, reorganized in accordance with special design,
material , and observed condition data recorded for each property. Similar
analysis performed on these groupings yielded substantially improved
approximations of the appraised values previously developed by Weld County
for several groups. However, it was not possible to identify satisfactory
relationships for these without the inclusion of much subjective data.
Analysis to this point had suggested the significance of age and general
construction material characteristics . The data was therefore grouped
by age (less than 10 years, and 10 to 50 years) , and construction type (wood
frame, asbestos siding, stucco, brick veneer, etc. ) . As noted previously,
the original data sample was selected with regard to quality-grade charac-
teristics; not age or construction data. As a result, not all groups of
this age construction matrix are adequately represented. Examples of the
under-populated groups are: Asbestos siding and less than 10 years old;
stucco and less than 10 years old; block less than 50 years old; and brick
less than 50 years old. While the apparent under-representation of these
construction types is doubtlessly due in part to the criteria by which
__ properties were selected, it is clear that it also results from the rela-
tively low frequency of their occurrence among the total population. For
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this reason, it was decided to not further expand the sample data base
for this study.
Subsequent analysis was therefore limited to the approximately 325 parcels
included in the categories indicated in the table below, which represents
approximately 65 percent of the 500 properties in the total sample; and
93 percent of the 346 sample properties less than 50 years of age.
TABLE 1
NUMBER OF SAMPLE PROPERTIES BY CATEGORY
Frame Asbestos Stucco Brick Veneer
Less than 10 years 34 - - 80
10 years to 50 years 80 24 19 42 _
Analysis was further limited to those data items originally recorded from
the appraisal card which might be objectively and accurately determined
for each property in the course of a normal field inspection (see Table 2) .
Despite this latter limitation, as well as the obviously coarse age grouping, —
surprisingly good equations were developed for four of the six groups. Sub-
sequent stratification of the fifth group into two groups of 10 to 20 years
and 20 to 50 years permitted the generation of improved equations for these —
older frame structures as well . The remaining group was not further strat-
ified as the small population was not felt sufficient to yield adequately
populated groups. —
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- 12 -
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
Numerous computer programs were developed in the course of this project.
With one exception, each of these was designed for one of the two following
purposes:
To edit and reformat data for subsequent analysis .
To analyze the data for relationships pertinent to the appraisal
process.
The general tasks executed by each program and the order of their develop-
ment is as follows:
Program Name Function
APRAS Editing and reformating of appraisal card
data
FREQ Data edit and measurement of absolute and
proportional occurrence of samples in each
quality-grade group and age level
FACT Preparation of analysis deck containing
quantified design and material measurements --
structured by quality-grade code
REFORM Preparation of analysis deck containing
quantified condition data
LOGI Restructure file according to recorded
property characteristics
GRP Restructure analysis file by age-material
characteristics derived from "LOGI"
SOLVE Application of coefficients to selected
property characteristics to estimate
appraised value
In addition to these special purpose programs, the linear regression routine
of the IBM 1130 statistical system was utilized to develop and evaluate
coefficients for each alternative appraisal equation.
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SYSTEM EVALUATION
The effectiveness of all the seven equations so generated is such that the
appraised value of more than 82% of the parcels included in the analysis
groups may be estimated within 20% of the value determined by the Weld
County Assessor's Office. While such performance is admittedly below that
felt suitable for a fully developed system, it appears that several factors
clearly within the capability of such a system are adequate to dramatically
upgrade this performance. These include the following:
1 . Reduction of variation due to lag and subjective decisions in
original field determined valuation of comparable sample properties .
Variations in the valuation of comparable properties due to lag and
the subjective decisions of a large number of individual appraisers
tend to obscure the significance of relationships between property
characteristics and value.
2. Expansion of number of sample properties for analysis . The devel-
opment of a larger group of sample properties selected in accordance
with the composition of the total population, rather than pre-
- conceived grouping schemes, such as the quality-grade designation
would serve to:
a. Permit more detailed stratification of the data within
construction, as well as age characteristics to increase
the homogeneity of each individual group;
b. Increase the number of sample properties within each group
to improve the expected validity of each equation.
3. Coordination of appraisals. The coordination of appraisals by a
formalized review of the data and value associated with each
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property by an individual appraiser or group of appraisers should
do much to reduce unexplained variation in the appraised value of
comparable properties .
The development and implementation of an "automatic-appraisal " system,
though it requires careful attention to these factors, also offers the
means by which they may be accommodated to an extent not possible with
more conventional systems .
1 . The use of a system for automatic appraisal permits periodic
complete reappraisals of improvement (thus eliminating inequita-
bilities due to lag) , and bases appraisals on objectively
R.,%94
measured data (which eliminates the sources of variation from
subjective decisions made by even very experienced appraisers) ;
2. The relationships discovered in the design of such a system and
the automated files developed in its implementation provide the
means for efficient examination of the composition of the popu-
lation of properties and the extraction of valid samples from
the files;
3. The reduced data requirements of such a system and its ability
to replace or perform mathematical calculations now made by
appraisers permits appraisers to devote more time to inspections ,
land sales, analysis, and the formal review of appraised values .
The periodic reappraisal of properties according to the proposed system --
may be based upon sample appraisals developed by either RCNLD or ESP
techniques. In either case, the Assessor is afforded the opportunity to
periodically adjust the tax burden of each property to correspond with
estimates of the current relative value of each property.
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SUMMARY
To be most effective, such an appraisal process should be integrated with
an automated assessment system. Preliminary study, conducted during devel-
- opment of the assessment process indicates that such systems may be designed
and implemented for counties of greatly varying sizes and resources and,
further, that these systems may be made fully compatible to permit "small "
systems to evolve and to continue to accommodate the increasing assessment
demands of a growing county.
The basis of such a system is the automation of a file containing property
data relevant to both the appraisal process and the record keeping, accounting,
and reporting operations of the Assessor's office. These files may be kept
in any of a variety of manipulable forms and may be maintained by any means
within the resources of the Assessor's office. Similarly, the machine require-
- ments necessary to such a system may be tailored for each county or shared
by a group of counties or by the State.
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SECTION III
THE WELD COUNTY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
GENERAL STRUCTURE
In its current conversion process, Weld County is operating two real
property systems in parallel . Because of the need for the application
of data processing methods to the assessment process and the apparent
success of the new automated system, which now contains approximately
fifty percent of all real properties in the County, this study has been
oriented to evaluation of specific elements of the system as they relate
to the Assessor's ability to accommodate the growing demands on his office.
This new system is, in fact, a subsystem of the total assessment system
which includes the following functional areas :
1 . Appraisal
2. Reporting
3. Accounting
This subsystem is oriented to the accounting function which includes:
1 . File maintenance
2. Documentation
File maintenance consists of the addition, deletion, or correction of a
specified set of accounting-related variables necessary to the preparation
of the tax roll . A generalized diagram of this maintenance process follows.
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TABLE 3
GENERALIZED FILE MAINTENANCE SY...:.M
RECEIVE NOTICE OF
CORRECTIONS CHANGE OR SPECIAL
NAME CHANGES INSTRUMENT
TRANSFERS
NO IS FIELD INSPECTIO
REQUIRED? YES
UPDATE
APPRAISAL
CARD CONTINUAL
ACCESS CURRENT ENTRY r
IN SCHEDULE
REAPPRAISALS
SPLITS
TRANSCRIBE FILE NO. NEW CONSTRUCTION
SEQUENCE NO. , TAX AREA,
AND SOURCE ONTO
UPDATE FORM
RECORD MODIFICATIONS,
INSERTIONS, OR DELETIONS
ONTO UPDATE FORM
NO IS SOURCE APPRAISAL YES
CARD?
UPDATE
APPRAISAL
CARD
NO IS NEW PROPERTY YES ACCESS NEW
CREATED? APPRAISAL CARD
TRANSCRIBE NEW APPRAISAL
CARD DATA TO UPDATE FORM;
ASSIGN NEW SEQUENCE NO.
FROM SCHEDULE } PERIODIC
1 I
PUNCH NEW RER
CARDS FROM
UPDATE FORMS
MERGE NEW CARDS INTO FILE
CHECK SEQUENCE OF
UPDATED FILE
CREATE NEW (CHANGED)
PAGES FOR SCHEDULE - 18 -
File documentation consists of the preparation of specified forms and
notices required by State law and/or by the operational requirements of
the accounting system. The documents include:
1 . Notice of increased valuation
2. Abstracts
3. Certification
4. Tax roll
5. Corrections
6. Counter schedules
7. Cross reference lists
EXISTING FILE MAINTENANCE ROUTINES
File maintenance routines have been developed and are currently being
utilized in the existing accounting subsystem. The purpose of these
routines is to expand or modify the file in accordance with changes in
the ownership, physical , or economic characteristics of each real property
as recorded by the Assessor's office. The principal changes accommodated
are categorized by the following headings:
1 . Transfer of ownership
2. Splitting of parcel
3. Reappraisal
4. Correction
Currently, all changes not affecting valuations are processed through the
entire accounting subsystem on a regular basis . The principal reason for
this procedure has been legislation requiring notices of increased assessed
valuation and respect of the January 1 assessment date.
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Transfers of ownership will , under the automated system, also be recorded
immediately on receipt. Transfers involving splits will not be recorded
immediately as the splits cause the modification of old parcels and the
creation of new parcels, thus affecting valuations. Therefore, the file
is not updated in accordance with recorded splits until after the succeed-
ing January 1 .
Similarly, value changes in accordance with reappraisals, field inspection,
or the correction of erroneous calculations are made to the system only
during the period between January 1 and June 1 . This schedule is dictated
by the requirement that taxpayers be sent notices of increases in the
assessed value of land or improvements by the June first prior to taxation
on the new value.
The processes by which the real property file is maintained are based upon
three principal elements:
1 . Format
2. Schedule number
3. Sequence
The format by which data is currently added-to, deleted-from, or modified-
within the Weld County system allows a great deal of flexibility to tailor
the input of change to the file. This attribute of the format, combined
with the use of a well structured RER (Real Estate Record) form combine to
greatly reduce the effort and complexity involved in the transcription of
change data and subsequent punching of update cards.
Similarly, the use of a schedule number provides an efficient means of
access to a particular record in the file for purposes of modifying or
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deleting the record. This number appears on the existing RER form for
that property and is conveniently recorded as a part of the update data.
Unfortunately, the schedule as it now exists is somewhat less suited to
the process of adding new records to the file (either in the course of
conversion or in the recording of new properties such as those created
by splits of existing parcels) . For these, it is currently necessary to
sort the update cards by the name of the owner and run them as a separate
update of the file. In the process of this separate run, schedule numbers
are assigned to the properties by an algorithm which determines the proper
location of the property by comparison of the owner's name with those of
properties existing in the alphabetical file. It is anticipated that after
the conversion process has been completed, and all properties have been
entered to the file, new properties will be assigned schedule numbers manu-
ally still based on the owner's name. Properties may then be entered
directly to the file with all other updates, eliminating the need for a
separate run.
Unfortunately, the formalized sequential structure of the file, based on
the alphabetical ordering of the names of all real property owners in the
County, will , even after the conversion process , require sorting of the
update deck prior to the maintenance run. In addition, the rewriting of
the entire file during each run will be required involving the addition or
deletion of one or more properties.
FILE DOCUMENTATION ROUTINES
The schedule number system currently used by Weld County has the advantage
of conformance to preparation of two principal reports: The RER listing
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of the file, and the tax roll . It also provides the sole unique numbering
system tied directly to a specific attribute of each individual property
ownership. Unfortunately, the alphabetic basis of the system bears no
relationship to other reports or (obviously) to the order in which changes
requiring modification of the file do occur.
Completion of the current mapping program, and the subsequent assignment
of parcel numbers according to the State system, will provide a unique
numbering system tied to a specific property location by which individual
properties may be identified. The use of such a system (either in-addition-
to or in-lieu-of of the current schedule number system) would increase the
efficiency of the file in respect to the preparation of data listings
related to the tax maps (similar to the textual data currently recorded in
the Assessor's block books) . A real property file, structured by parcel
number, would also be better suited to the development of planning reports
for the County Commissioners, school administrators, and planning officials ;
as well as use in conjunction with data developed by the U. S. Census and
other public agencies .
- 22 -
SECTION IV
POTENTIAL DATA APPLICATIONS FOR
PLANNING, PROGRAMMING, AND BUDGETING
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this section of the Weld County Data Management Study
are to identify some selected basic data needs of the Assessor, County
government, and school administration, and to evaluate the County assess-
ment file as a possible source of this data.
The first step is to identify specific activities for test application of
assessment file data. Although there are numerous facets of County govern-
ment administration which could use assessment related data to aid the
decision making process, certain specific activities represent major areas
of concern. These are:
1 . Evaluation of appraised values, sales analysis and workload planning.
2. Growth monitoring reports to the Assessor and the Board of County
Commissioners on a monthly basis to assist project programming and
budgeting.
3. Initiation of transportation study data system compatible with the
format required by the Bureau of Public Roads to assist the County
in determining priorities for road and bridge construction.
4. Growth monitoring reports to school districts as a planning aid
for site selection and facilities.
OPERATIONS MONITORING
As the office directly responsible for the creation and maintenance of the
files and supporting routines by which this data may be made available, the
Assessor should also plan for the generation of information to aid him in
- 23 -
the planning and evaluation of his own operations . As indicated above,
there are at least three principal areas for which such information is
readily available. -
Review of Appraisal Values - The inclusion of selected property character-
istics , including recorded sales within the real property file, will provide
the Assessor with important data for the periodic review and evaluation of
appraisals . A study is currently being conducted by the State Tax Commission
toward the development of a system of measuring the comparability of prop-
erties for the purpose of accessing data to permit the comparison of appraised
values and recorded sales . Once such an approach has been formulated and
measures of comparability developed, the Assessor might apply these to his
automated file to aid in the review of appraisals on an annual , semi-annual ,
monthly, or even weekly basis. Thus, the expertise of the State Tax Com-
mission might be utilized by county assessors to aid in the review process
without requiring each office to create and maintain a complete duplicate
file in Denver.
Sales Analysis - The analysis of recorded sales, particularly of land and
non-residential properties is especially important to accurate appraisals .
In addition to its use in the review of appraisal values as discussed
above, data within the assessment file may be utilized in the development
of proper appraisals.
Workload Planning - Much of the data gathered by the Assessor through receipt
of special instruments, as well as by field inspections, contain the poten-
tial for forecasting of future workloads and information useful to the
planning necessary to meet these loads. Splits, for example, may be
- 24 -
monitored to provide advance indication of the location and extent of
significant future residential development. Similarly, the Assessor may
query his file for listings of appraisals of a given age or greater for
the entire County or (utilizing parcel number) within specific sections
of the County and then make work assignments according to the response
from the file.
The Assessor may also anticipate a portion of his own workload as well ,
by making all notices of increased assessed valuation prior to the June
first deadline. Such an approach would keep him advised of the number
of appeals which he might expect and would, if they were mailed as they
are made, serve to prevent the concentration of all appeals into the month
of June.
REPORTS TO COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Purpose - Another significant product which can be directly obtained from
information available at the Assessor's office is a monthly growth moni-
toring report.
The purpose of this report would be to provide comparative data on the
amount, type, value, and location of construction and development reported
monthly.
The current real estate record file being developed at the Greeley National
Bank (GNB) Data Processing Center will contain data relevant to the account-
ing requirements of the Assessor's office only, while data items required
for the generation and evaluation of appraisals are recorded only on the
manual appraisal card file. As developed in the preceding section of this
- 25 -
study (automating appraisals) roughly 80 percent of the available field
card data is recommended to be "computerized" and will , therefore, be
available for analysis and report generation. The automated file currently
utilized contains roughly 20 percent of the available data.
Report Data Subjects - There are five basic subjects which would provide
the kinds of data needed to assist this segment of the public administra-
tion and decision making process. These are identified as follows :
1 . Land Utilization
2. Land Revenue
3. People
4. Employment
5. Service Requirements
The following discussion deals with application of the data and the methods
for generating the reports .
Data Applications - The applications of the above five groups are fairly
obvious . Each group yields a product or standard applicable to the pro-
gramming and budgeting process:
1 . Land Utilization - The absorption of land into development as
compared to vacant or agricultural uses always presents new -
demands for governmental facilities and services . A specific
measure of this absorption rate by type and location will
permit relationship to tax revenues which can be further
analyzed on a per capita basis. This provides one of the
most positive means for budget planning.
- 26 -
2. Revenue Base - Real estate tax revenues are obviously related to
land utilization. However, revenues from development usually do
not appear until a year after completion and appraisal . This
can be scheduled into a revenue forecast report to be produced
on either a regular or on an as-needed basis .
3. People - By identification of the type and size of development, the
number of new dwelling units can be reported by location, and the
number of families and population by average family size may be
computed. It is obvious that growth monitoring of people will
provide important advance information to plan for changes and addi-
tions in County services and facilities. Also, as the data base
improves; family characteristics can be added to specifically aid
in school facility, health, 'and welfare planning.
4. Employment - Each new family in the County means a new job somewhere
This has an effect on the economy of the County and on potential
major expenditures for roads and other related facilities. Also,
business interests can use such information as related to disposable
income for goods and services .
5. Service Requirements - Items one through four relate to service
demands and financial capabilities to meet these demands. This
element, "service requirements" , is intended to establish and
monitor standards related to growth and change. These standards
can then be applied to demographic and economic data to document
existing as well as projected demands for facilities and services
which should be included in a budgeting program.
- 27 -
Report Format and Production - It is suggested that such a report would
regularly present data on at least two geographic levels : County wide and
by school district. It should also be based upon files and procedures which
will permit the generation and display of information pertaining to other
areas, such as traffic zones, sewerage districts, and census tracts , for
special analysis. The following table indicates one of many possible for-
mats of such a report.
- 28 -
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- 29 -
A report of this type is possible utilizing only the information being
entered to the computerized Weld County real estate file today. However,
the presentation of current data by other areal systems on either a regular
or a special basis, requires the assignment of a parcel numbering system
to the real estate file. The importance of the parcel designation cannot
be overemphasized. It would permit the creation of a common point of
reference for all data, enabling the assessment file to accommodate, store,
and report on data recorded by other agencies . The numbering system is
flexible enough to adjust data to each agency 's areal needs .
Principal among such other data sources is the recently completed 1970
Census . The presently used property identifiers (legal description and
schedule number) provide for no standard reference to location and so are
not suitable for use in relating parcels to census tracts . When each
property has been assigned a parcel number according to the State proposed
system (this system includes numeric codes for: county, township, range,
section, 1/4 section, block and parcel ) , it will be feasible to describe
the boundaries of the census tract by a similar code and so relate data
gathered by the census to that now residing in the Assessor's files . This
would then permit the development of an improved population monitoring
system which would actually represent a continuous and automatic updating
of the census information directly from data routinely collected by the
Assessor's office.
Identification of properties by a locational scheme, such as the parcel
number system, would also greatly increase the potential utility of the
real estate record file. This file could be used as the framework for
the creation and maintenance of a dynamic data file containing welfare and
- 30 -
law enforcement information. Such information might be queried on a
periodic basis, as in the preparation of the reports to the Commissioners
to aid in normal planning and budgeting, as well as in response to special
needs by the operating agencies .
REPORT TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS
The objective is to provide school district administrators with a direct
report on growth by type and location from assessment records. Also, to
provide a revenue forecasting tool for school budget and facilities planning.
In return, school administrators can provide data on family characteristics
normally assembled or derived from records maintained by the school district.
The report from the County Commissioners Office to school administrators
can be derived entirely from the report provided by the Assessor's office.
It could be transmitted monthly or quarterly and should include data on
land use, tax revenue, population and employment.
The kinds of information the school administrators could provide the County
relate primarily to family characteristics . This would include:
1 . Family size
2. Age-Sex groupings
3. Student enrollments by grade
4. Education level attained by family members
5. National origin and race
This information relates to health and welfare requirements , community
college requirements and potential Federal aid requirements for housing.
The flexibility of the data files and processing capabilities of the system
examined in this study provides for considerable latitude by the County in
- 31 -
its selection of data to be distributed through each of its regular as
well as special reports. Thus, reports to school administrators may
represent only the selection of data pertinent to their own districts
from the County Commissioners ' report; or the report for each school
district may, though constructed from the same data items, be further
stratified according to census tracts , traffic zones, or other geographic
systems specified and coded for input by each school district.
Among the benefits which the County could expect to derive from the trading
of a report to each school district would be the ability to utilize such
small area data in their own special analysis. —
PLANNING DATA SYSTEMS
Objective - The Federal Highway Act of 1962 requires that all metropolitan
areas or municipalities containing a population of 50,000 or more must have
established a "continuing comprehensive transportation planning process" in
order to qualify for Federal Aid for highway construction. The Federal
Bureau of Public Roads set forth the specifications for the "process" which
are fairly complicated.
Weld County and Greeley are both growing rapidly. Greeley will reach the
50,000 level in five to eight years and will have to respond to the provis-
ions of the 1962 Act. The objective of this section, therefore, is to -
prepare for the transportation planning process in Weld County by establish-
ing a data base which would be easily accessed and used by planners and the
State Highway Department. Also, set a pattern for a statewide system of
data accessibility as part of an established on-going system - the best
source being the County assessment office.
- 32 -
Any county which has a planning department, or is associated with a
regional planning agency, should be directly involved in this process
and be responsible for the land use forecasts related to the transpor-
tation study. It should, also, work with the State Highway Department
as required.
TRANSPORTATION STUDY REQUIREMENTS
In very brief outline, a transportation study generally includes the
following:
Traffic Districts - This involves dividing the area into traffic districts
and zones (which are subsets of districts) to which data will be allocated.
The size of each district and each zone is a function of its population and
activity; rural areas are large, urban areas small .
Land Use - Usually a one digit coding of land uses is allocated to traffic
zones . This is generally used to assist in determining other economic and
household data needed to determine trip generation.
Economic and Household Data - This generally involves the following items
_ allocated to traffic districts or zones for current and future years:
1 . Zone non-resident data
a. Employment by type
2. Zone resident data
a. Number of households
b. Family size
c. Household employment (number)
d. Where employed (location by traffic zone)
- 33 -
e. Household income by range
f. Number of cars in household
g. Number of car trips by purpose
h. Number of transit trips by purpose
The information is either obtained by home interviews on a sample basis,
or factored from other base information and general experience standards .
Highway Network Description - Identify by map, primary and secondary roads
and identify segments between intersections as links. Determine highway
capacities of each link and driving times across link.
Highway Network Assignments - This is a multi-step process to develop trip
assignments to road links for existing and future development. It is based
on the number of trips generated between traffic zones.
Short Range Improvement Priorities - It is obvious that the above process
is complicated and requires more data than is maintained in the Assessor's
files. It is not necessary to begin with a full program for Weld County.
The County could begin developing reports which identify growth by location,
identify a primary and secondary road network, graphically locate employment
centers, obtain sample traffic counts for selected road locations, and then
establish road improvement priorities . The data requirements and tasks for
this abbreviated version are described as follows:
1 . Map out a highway network identifying major arterial and collector
roads as they now exist.
2. Map current growth areas by major type.
3. Map future growth area extensions based on existing comprehensive
- 34 -
planning in the County, plus identification of other potential
growth areas.
4. By inspection and (if possible) by placement of traffic counters
— at selected locations, identify short range improvement require-
ments and assign priorities.
This short range approach provides only a minimum stop-gap effort to give
some immediate direction to road improvements .
— Long Range Road Planning - As part of the Weld County Management Improvements
Program, the following Planning tasks should be started after discussions
with the advance planning section of the State Highway Department:
Task 1 - Develop a system of traffic zones for all of Weld County and
review with the State Highway Department.
Task 2 - Develop a data reporting system for selection of assessment
data as follows, allocated to traffic zones:
Parcel location
Land use type
Land area
Non-residential floor space
Total valuation
Dwelling units
Task 3 - Develop a total population and economic data base by traffic
zone as part of a program-planning system for current and future years
by five-year increments to 1990. The data base should be tabulated by
traffic zone on punch cards .
Task 4 - Establish a growth and change monitoring system for maintaining
zone data using assessment data (Task 3) and criteria, and then to test
zone forecasts.
- 35 -
Task 5 - Arrange with the State Highway Department for trip character-
istics, data or criteria, road classification information, plus other
basic requirements and to have the State develop projected highway
network traffic assignments for the County.
Task 6 - Schedule construction priorities for road improvements.
PREPARATION OF REPORTS, LAND USE, AND TRANSPORTATION DATA
The majority of assessment data applications outlined in this section may
be created by simply listing selected items contained within the real and
personal property record files. Several other applications will , however,
require the development of new processing routines to convert data stored
in the assessment files into forms better suited to specific planning
applications . An example of such processing is the conversion of the
observed (from assessment records) number of single family, apartment, and
mobile home dwelling units into estimates of the current and future demands
for educational space.
The following tables indicate, for each application, the information items
to be produced and the data and procedures which might best be used in
their production.
- 36 -
TABLE 5
ELEMENTS OF PERIODIC PLANNING REPORTS
Desired Information Data Item Processing
Land Use by unit area Parcel size by abstract Sum and list
code
Valuation by Land Use Land and improvements Sum and list
type by unit area value by abstract code
Number households by Number dwelling units Factor number of D.U.s
D.U.* type by unit by residential structure of each type by vacancy
area type rate derived from census
Population by unit Number of households by Factor number of house-
_ area D.U. type as determined hold by type, by
above persons/occupied D.U.
ratio from census
Students by unit area Number of households by Several possible approaches:
D.U. type as determined May "age" census figures
above or apply similar to above
ratio
Employment by business Square feet of floor or Factor square feet by
type and unit area land area by abstract estimated employment per
code, business code and square foot by business
unit area type
Water requirements Population, employment Factor population and
by unit area by type and irrigation employment and irrigated
by unit area as land by water use
determined above requirements
Sewer requirements Population, employment Factor population and
by unit area by type and special employment and special
uses by unit area uses by sewer
requirements
*D.U. - Dwelling Unit
- 37 -
TABLE 6
TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE
PLANNING FILE
Desired Information Data Item Processing
Employment by type See Table 3
Number of households See Table 3
Family size See Table 3
Household Employment* Value or rent of D.U. Factor by labor
participation ratio
determined from
interview data
Zone of employment* Sum and list from
zone of residence
data
Household incomes Value or rent of D.U. Factor by ratio
by range* determined from
U.S. Census data
Number of cars Value or rent of D.U. Factor by ratios
in household* determined from
U.S. Census data
Number of car trips Value or rent of D.U. Factor by ratios
by purpose* determined from
interview data
Number of transit Value or rent of D.U. Factor by ratios
trips by purpose* determined from
interview data
*Data normally gathered in course of household interview. All items
excepting zone of employment may reasonably be updated through assessment
data.
- 38 -
In the development of such a reporting function , the production of the
periodic planning reports to the Commissioners and others should, for
greatest efficiency, be tied to the maintenance of the land use and trans-
portation file. Both elements should be initiated with the creation of a
composite data base comprised of assessment data, available current land
use data, and 1970 U. S. Census data. This data base will then be utilized
to provide the original estimate of each variable and the relationships
which will permit these estimates to be revised in accordance with changes
observed by the Assessor to maintain the validity of these estimates in
light of future development.
An example of this process is the creation and maintenance of estimates of
household income by small area. As stated above, the process is initiated
by the creation of a composite data base including for each zone:
1 . From published U. S. Census data, the relationship between house-
hold income and the value or rent of the dwelling unit (this data
is presented by rent and value ranges and by income ranges) ;
2. From the Assessor's files , the number of dwelling units within
each rent or value range;
3. From published U. S. Census data, the number of households
currently reported in each income category;
Residential construction , demolition , or reappraisals subsequently recorded
by the Assessor's office are periodically aggregated by analysis zone and
factored by the relationships determined in (1 . ) above to yield estimates
of the net change which these actions reflect in the number of households
in each income category in the zone.
- 39 -
The data base is then modified by the estimated net change to produce a
current measure of the total number of households in each category within
each zone.
The advantages of such a system are:
1 . The greatly increased availability of valuable policy and planning
information;
2. The ability to produce such information for individual small areas
or larger areas developed by aggregation of small area character-
istics without the need for expensive special surveys; and,
3. The anticipated accuracy of such information based on the modifi-
cation of U. S. Census information by regularly recorded assessment
data.
Clearly, a principal requirement of such a system is the ability to organize
the necessary data by the specified geographic areas. These areas may be
tax districts, census tracts, or traffic zones, or combinations of such
units . El Paso County, as part of the development of such a system, has
coded census tract designations into their file to permit the selection of
data relevant to these units and has recently begun the task of attaching
traffic zone numbers to each property schedule. While this is the most
direct method of applying an areal system to the data, other approaches are
also possible. For example, the application of the previously discussed
State parcel numbering system in Weld County will permit users to build
directories , similar to cross reference tables , which would aggregate data
for areal units covering only a small portion of the properties or used
too infrequently to justify permanent storage within the file.
- 40 -
SECTION V
RECONFIGURATION OF WELD COUNTY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
DATA NEEDS
The perceived data needs of an extended Weld County automated assessment
system are indicated by Table 7 on the following page. This table indicates
the data requirements of each of the three principal functional areas of
the assessor:
1 . Appraisal
2. Accounting
3. Reporting
The reporting function has been further stratified to indicate the data
requirements of the separate report-types discussed in earlier sections of
this study:
1 . Operations monitoring
2. Reports to Commissioners and School Districts
3. Generation of transportation and land use planning data
As mentioned earlier, the data set necessary to an efficient accounting system
is now accommodated by the assessor' s file. (Though parcel numbers have not
yet been assigned in Weld County, provision has been made for their inclusion
to the file.) Unfortunately, this set represents only slightly more than one-
third of the total number of data items necessary to the execution of the
three assessment functions of appraisal , accounting, and reporting. Moreover,
only eight of the fourteen data items currently in the file are applicable
to tasks in either the calculation of appraised value or the preparation of
reports for internal or external use.
- 41 -
TABLE 7
REAL PROPERTY DATA ITEMS BY APPLICATION
Application
Transportation _
Accounting Automated Operations Commission School and Land Use
Data Item System Appraisal Monitoring Report Report Planning
Schedule Number X
Parcel Number X X X X X
Abstract Code X X X X
Tax Area X X X
Date Last Update X X
Reception Number X
Name of Owner X
"In Care of" Name X
Taxpayer's Address X
Acres X X X X
Land Value (Current) X X X X
Land Value (Old) X X X X
Imp. Value (Current) X X X X
Imp. Value (Old) X X X X
Zoning Class X X
Land Class X X
Year Last Sale X X X
Sale Price X X X
Building Number X X X
Structure Type X X X
Use X X X
First Floor Area X X
Second Floor Area X X
Third Floor Area X X X
Half Story Area X
Unfinished Basement X
Finished Basement X
Finished Attic X
Porch Area X
Construction Type X X
Condition X X
Foundation M & G * X
Exterior M & G * X
Roof (Design) X
Roofing M & G * X
Floors M & G * X
Interior M & G * X
Number of Rooms X X
Number of Bath Units X
Actual Year Const. X X
Adj . Year Const. X
- 42 -
TABLE 7 (CONTINUED)
REAL PROPERTY DATA ITEMS BY APPLICATION
Application
— Transportation
Accounting Automated Operations Commission School and Land Use
Data Item System Appraisal Monitoring Report Report Planning
Year Last Appraised X
App. Value (this Bldg) X
-- App. Value (Other Imp) X
Legal Description X
Income X X
— Fixed Expenses X
Operating Expenses X
Reserve X
* M & G refers to material and grade designation
- 43 -
Much of the additional data specified as necessary is clearly attributable
to the operational requirements of an automated appraisal system. The study
of automated calculation of RCNLD discussed earlier in this report utilized
data generated from only eight of the items specified in the chart as necessary
to this process. It would not be reasonable, however, to constrain all future
development of such processes to this same data set as relationships may be
expected to change from time to time, and the recommended further work dis-
cussed in the section dealing with auto-appraisal may well lead to the
identification of additional variables, included in Table 4, of significance
to RCNLD. Further, it appears that efforts by the State Tax Commission toward
automated appraisal , will , at least in the near future, be oriented to com-
puterization of the replacement cost manual . If this should occur, even the
data set specified above may need to be expanded to accommodate the input
requirements of that approach.
Table 7 should also make quite clear the fact that the data items specified
as necessary to the direct assessment functions of appraisal and accounting
include more than 90 per cent of the data required for preparation of the
suggested internal and external reports. The only special items being
zoning class and rural land class; both items that may quite likely be
selected for input to an appraisal process such as the Tax Commission is
now considering. Thus, by creating and maintaining the files necessary for
an automated appraisal and accounting system, the assessor makes available
the data required for a valuable range of operational and planning information.
In addition to the directly associated tasks outlined in Sections II and III,
expansion of the existing system to perform the functions outlined in the
- 44 -
previous sections requires modification of input procedures and automated
file structures. While the changes in each of these areas are relatively
minor, it is necessary to examine their total impact in order to properly
design and evaluate a total system of assessment and specific related
operations.
Input Procedures - For the data set discussed above, the data input require-
ments relating to existing files will fall into two categories: unique and
_ common. The category of unique data includes the specific lot and improvement
data recorded by the appraiser in the field. Such data can be developed and
properly stored and utilized only by direct reference to specific parcels or
structures. Common data, however, consists of items which may be determined
without reference to specific properties but which may be utilized to qualify
properties or characteristics of parcels or groups of parcels. Zoning category
designations, traffic zone areas, census tracts, and tax districts are examples
of such areas.
Generally, unique data must be input to the system by individually coding and
merging the specific values associated with each parcel . Thus , the process of
upgrading the existing Weld County real estate file would involve the creation
of separate input records for each property schedule from a parcel related
source document such as the appraiser's grid card.
Common data, however, may be input to the system by much different techniques.
Since they generally apply not to specific individual parcels, but to larger
geographic areas comprising aggregations of many parcels, various methodologies
may be applied to:
- 45 -
1 . Describe these areas
2. Identify the schedules related to properties in these areas
3. Assign the common attributes of each area to these parcels.
Such a process may be executed once to develop a complete data base or it may
be executed on request for the insertion of special use data items.
File Structure - Among the considerations affecting the selection and
organization of data to be included in an automated file are the following :
1 . Data Source
2. Data Stability
3. Data Applications
4. Data Access Groups (application and maintenance)
Source - The direct source of data to the file is the RER (Real Estate Record)
coding form either as currently used by Weld County or in an extended form to
include the additional items under consideration. This is true of all normal
operations on the file, although the data may be coded to this form from
appraisal cards, taxpayer's statements, reception sheets , or a variety of other
monitoring opportunities utilized by the assessor' s office. Thus, each data
item relevant to each property should be accessible through the RER update.
Stability - The relative frequency with which the value of each data item may
be expected to change, requiring a change in the data file, is also an important
consideration. Table 8 indicates those data items generally changed as a
result of each of the following actions monitored by the assessor' s office:
1 . Transfer
2. Split
3. Reappraisal
4. Field Inspection
- 46 -
Unfortunately, this table by itself is quite misleading. The apparent high
activity of data as a result of field inspections should be qualified by the
fact that only a limited number of such inspections (approximately 25 per
cent of the existing parcels) are made each year and that many of these will
require changes in none or only a few of the items actually inventoried by
the appraiser for each parcel .
On the contrary, the most frequent action on the file, after implementation
of an automated-appraisal system should be the annual reappraisal of all
properties in the file to assure that all assessments are made on current
appraisals determined by the most recently developed parameters. Thus, since
only a number of parcels equal to approximately 20 per cent of the total file
is transferred or split annually, reappraisal , which has a direct impact on
no more than eight data items, will likely represent the greatest demand on
file access capabilities. Moreover, the appraisal and reappraisal function,
particularly as it is currently envisioned by the State Tax Commission, will
require the largest number of data items from the file as input to the cal-
_ culation of appraised values.
- 47 -
TABLE 8
DATA ITEMS AFFECTED BY SELECTED ACTIONS
Type of Action
Data Item Transfer Split Reappraisal Inspection
Schedule Number X X
Parcel Number X
Abstract Code
Tax Area
Date Last Update X X X X
Reception Number X X
Name of Owner X X
"In Care of" Name X X
Taxpayer's Address X X
Acres X
Land Value (Current) X X
Land Value (Old) X X
Imp. Value (Current) X X
Imp. Value (Old) X X
Zoning Class X
Land Class X
Year Last Sale X X
Sale Price X X
Building Number X
Structure - Type X
Use X
First Floor Area X
Second Floor Area X
Third Floor Area X
Half Story Area X
Unfinished Basement X
Finished Basement X
Finished Attic X
Porch Area X
Construction Type X
Condition X
Foundation M & G * X
Exterior M & G * X
Roof (Design) X
Roofing M & D * X
Floors M & G * X
Interior M & G * X
Number of Rooms X
Number Bath Units X
Actual Year Const. X
Adj . Year Const. X
Year Last Appraised X
App. Value (This Bldg) X
App. Value (Other Imp) X
- 48 -
TABLE 8 (CONTINUED)
DATA ITEMS AFFECTED BY SELECTED ACTIONS
Type of Action
Data Item Transfer Split Reappraisal Inspection
Legal Description X X
Income X
Fixed Expenses X
Operating Expenses X
Reserve X
* M & G refers to material and grade designation
- 49 -
Applications - The applications to which each of these data items is to be put
are outlined in Table 7 above. The frequencies of each of these applications
are critically important to the design of the real estate data file. Of the
six applications indicated in the table, the accounting function is, by far,
the most active. The greatest activity in terms of frequency in this function
is the maintenance (updating and correcting) of data contained in the real
estate file. File maintenance, whether it is conducted daily, weekly, or
monthly is, in addition to its machine processing demands , the single biggest
job in terms of personnel costs. It is therefore imperative that the file
and its supporting operations be structured to make both the manual and the --
computerized portions of the file maintenance process as efficient as possible.
The accounting function also includes the preparation of a variety of documents
which serve as audits of various characteristics of the appraisal and account-
ing functions. These documents include:
1 . Notice of increased valuation
2. Abstracts
3. Certification
4. Tax Roll
5. Corrections and Abatements
6. Counter Schedules (RER)
7. Cross References
With the exception of the counter schedules, and possibly the cross reference
listings, these documents are produced only once annually. The counter schedule
is continually updated but only the entries relating to properties requiring
updates in the computerized file are modified ; thus the entire file is regen-
erated no more often than once each year.
- 50 -
Although the low frequency with which these documents are produced tends to
mitigate against their significance as design criteria, the rigidity of their
content, sequencing, and timing (see below) requirements make them very
significant factors indeed. However, while they each require a subset of
the specified set of accounting data, the variety of the necessary sequencing
patterns diminishes the potential efficiency of any single method of file
organization intended to be most efficient for any one application.
- 51 -
TABLE 9
CHARACTERISTICS OF BASIC ASSESSMENT REPORTING DOCUMENTS
Document Minimum Content Sequence Timing
Notice of Taxpayer Name Unspecified By June 1
Increased Taxpayer Address
Valuation Old Value (Improvements)
New Value (Improvements)
Old Value (Land)
New Value (Land)
Abstract County By Abstract Code By August 10
Value by Abstract Code
Certification County By Tax Unit By October 1
Total Assessed Value by
Tax Unit
Tax Roll Taxpayer Name Specified By By January 1
Taxpayer Address Local Policy*
Legal Description of Property
Tax Unit
Tax on Improvements
Tax on Land
Total Tax
Corrections Taxpayer Name Unspecified October 1 -
and Taxpayer Address January 1
Abatements Tax Unit
Legal Description
Original Value and Tax
Erroneous Value and Tax
Corrected Value and Tax
Reason
* Currently produced in alphabetical order by name of Owner in Weld County.
El Paso County creates this same roll in parcel number sequence.
- 52 -
EXAMINATION OF COMPATABILITY OF EXTENDED DATA AND DATA MANIPULATION DEMANDS
AND CURRENT WELD COUNTY SYSTEM
Problems - Currently, as discussed in the preceding section, the Weld County
real estate file contains only those data elements required for the accounting
activities of the office. While decisions to increase the extent of data in
this file to include selected items necessary to revised appraisal techniques
may be easily accomplished by simple expansion of the file, certain processing
diseconomies, felt to exist already within the structure of the file, will
likely be magnified by such expansion.
Principal among these is the rigidity of the present file, structured on an
alphabetical sort of owner's name. This structure places severe constraints
on the procedures by which the file is maintained, as well as the uses to
which it may be applied. As the file is currently structured, each property
schedule is assigned a schedule number based upon its relative location in a
list of all property schedules in the file. This schedule number, which is
subsequently output onto the hard copy "RER" displaying all the data contained
in the record relating to that schedule, becomes the unique identifier for
the schedule and, as such, may only be changed in conjunction with similar
modification of all other files containing reference to that number. The
structure of the file is itself based upon the same alphabetic sort by
which the schedule numbers are assigned.
Selection of an alphabetic sort for the structure of the file and the assign-
ment of identifiers (schedule numbers) was presumably based upon the fact
that certain assessment responsibilities; e.g. , tax roll and counter files,
lend themselves to such systems. Thus , in the absence of another system of
unique identification, file maintenance involves a 50 column sort and an
elaborate schedule number assignment algorithm for each maintenance run.
- 53 -
The state parcel numbering system, already in use in some areas of Colorado and
soon to be applied in Weld County, will provide another unique identifier for
each parcel , and so is likely to lead to the desire to organize future reports
and reorganize certain current reports on that system. (This is the system
currently utilized in El Paso County. ) With the existing configuration of the
real estate file, the preparation of such reports will either be themselves
quite costly to produce or will require reorganization of the basic real estate
file itself (which would, obviously, increase inefficiencies in the generation
of later reports according to the current alphabetic system) .
Considerations to increase the efficiency of the assessor' s file maintenance
and reporting responsibilities can be best accomplished when all tasks relevant
to the total assessment obligations are reviewed as a composite set. Thus,
the development of a file configuration must be based upon the efficiencies
of each alternative configuration for maintenance and report purposes; the
weight which is placed on each being based upon its cost and relative frequency.
For example, far greater savings will accrue from savings in the cost of each
update run (performed weekly or even monthly) than from an equal saving in the
expense of each annual generation of tax rolls.
Approaches - It is suggested that the file be reorganized along lines discussed
below to increase the efficiency of the current update process and to accommodate
the increasing variety of reports and report formats anticipated from the
assessment file. A principal value of the proposed file structure and system
configuration is the ability to function properly without the need for a rigid
structure. Because the file need not be rigidly structured according to any
single criteria, it may be manipulated in the manner most efficient for each
specific task.
- 54 -
Because the alphabetic sort by which the file is currently structured is an
arbitrary device, efficient only for two annual reports , it is not properly
forced onto more frequent operations such as file maintenance and special
queries which in no way conform to any alphabetic relationship. The ideal
system would , therefore, permit such high frequency operations as file main-
tenance to treat the file as though they were structured in conformance with
the specific characteristics of these operations ; thus minimizing the time
and effort expended in the merging of new data into an existing file or set
of files. The process should permit the simple consecutive addition of property
schedules to the file.
The approach suggested is to utilize a very compact table of alternative
property schedule identifiers , any of which may be used to reference the file
location number identifying the location of a property schedule within the
file. Thus, using the table below,
1 100
2 200
3 300
112 11200
113 11300
114 11400
--- 115 11500
116 11600
117 11700
an inquiry concerning the property with schedule number 115 scans the schedule
number column until 115 is found. The number indicating the location of data
relative to schedule number 115 is then read permitting the proper record to
be accessed within the automated real estate file at location 11500.
The current structure of the Weld County real estate file, sorted into alpha-
_ betical order by name of owner and assigned a schedule number which is consec-
utive across that sort, eliminates the need for such a separate table referencing
- 55 -
schedule numbers and locations as they are intended to conform in every case.
Thus, in this structure the schedule number serves as nothing more than a
somewhat easier to handle substitute for the actual name of the owner. It
does , however, cause some problems in that methods must be established for
its assignment to assure its uniqueness and conformity to the sort on which
it is based.
In contrast, the use of a schedule number - location directory permits schedule
numbers which bear no relationship to the location of the record in the file. —
Thus , the table used in the illustration above might also have been structured
as :
1 762
2 123
3 337
112 896
113 471
114 229
115 414
116 685
117 568
Hence, the table may contain schedule numbers assigned according to the relative
position of each property schedule in a list sorted by the name of the owner,
just as did the original table. But these numbers reference locations to which
the actual record of each property has been assigned; these locations bear no
relationship to the alphabetic structure of the schedule numbers, permitting
new properties to be added to the end of the file without the need to rewrite
the entire file to merge them into a prespecified location.
Taking this one step further, it is possible to utilize yet another form of
this table in which neither the column of schedule numbers nor the column of
property record file locations is arranged in a rigid prespecified (such as
alphabetic) sequence. This arrangement requires a scan of the schedule number
- 56 -
column, which is somewhat less efficient than the use of a formula which would
determine directly, from the owner's name, the location of a number in the
schedule list. It also obviates the need for the inefficient process of com-
- paring and sorting of many owners' names for the assignment of numbers and
the merging of property records into corresponding locations within the file
(a process which also requires extensive changes in the file itself) . In
application, such a process would permit the use of a schedule number applied
simply by the chronological order in which property records are created, or
(better) by use of a unique number already existing within the property record;
e.g. , parcel number. Similarly, the property record file itself would be up-
dated by simply adding new records to the end of the file with no need to change
the order or location of records already within the file. Thus, a table such
as indicated below may evolve and be efficiently utilized for all normal file ,.
maintenance procedures.
3 337
112 896
2 123.,
114 229
113 471
115 414
Further flexibility is provided this approach by the ability to reference the
list of property record locations by several columns of identifier numbers
which permits the user to access individual properties or groups of properties
according to data within the individual property records or stored within
another file. Thus, an expanded table may be developed on the lines of the
example below:
Schedule Number Traffic Zone Parcel Number Location
3 27 62 4237 13 2 14 052 337
- 57 -
Thus, in addition to the identifier (schedule number) used in normal updating of the real property record file, a variety of other tags may be applied to
each property record through the table in order to extract it separately from
the file or to group it with other properties having one or more similar -
characteristics such as location within traffic zones , zoning classification,
etc.
The use of such an expanded table permits the simple, unsorted, real property
record file to be used as though it were several separate files containing -
the same information , but each sorted in accordance with the specific sequency
required for each use. Thus by using such a table, the ability to access the
file in an unsequenced manner (most efficient for file maintenance purposes)
may also be used for the preparation of documents such as tax notices,
schedules, block book or tax map texts, abstracts, and certifications which
require very rigorous sequencing patterns. -
Further efficiency may be provided by proper utilization of sorting runs
(made only once a year, at tax roll time or immediately after tax notices
have been run, rather than at each update) to regenerate an alphabetic or
parcel number structure within the file and to renumber the property records
accordingly. While such a process is not necessary to the system, it permits
significant reductions in file search time to be made for certain applic-
ations and reduces the cost of the next annual sort.
While several counties have thus far achieved varying levels of success in
the conversion of their accounting processes to data processing systems
utilizing sequential file structures and processing routines , anticipated
growth of periodic and special demands will place an increasing strain on
- 58 -
these systems. The greatest demands will likely come from the requirements
of automated appraisal techniques, which state run or local , are an inevitable
part of the assessor's future. Further, whether the assessor plans for it
or not, the inclusion of data necessary for automated appraisals and locational
data, such as the state parcel number, will motivate increasing requests for
information of the kinds presented in earlier sections.
Obviously, if these predictions are true, the assessor will be much better
off to have anticipated these demands by the design and implementation of
accounting systems capable of the necessary flexibility of response.
Such flexibility can be acquired only by the abandonment of very demanding
file structures which have been developed to accommodate only very particular
functions within the assessor 's total responsibility.
Updating - File update routines should be restructured to permit the assessor
to record all changes immediately on completion of a field inspection or
reappraisal or receipt of a special instrument. By updating his files as
change occurs , the assessor may avoid the creation of unnecessary peak
workloads and may maintain a much more current file for use in the prepar-
ation of reports as well as a data base for use in the evaluation of appraisals
and sales analysis.
Unfortunately, due to various timing considerations, including those which
require the assessor to utilize appraisals reflecting values as of January
first and to mail notices of increased assessments by June first, it may be
necessary to maintain on the active file both old and new appraised values
and assessments for property schedules during certain times of the year.
Moreover, the current need to write the legal description on the tax roll
- 59 -
requires that any changes affecting the legal description (including splits)
be recorded on the file in a manner which assures that the legal description
appropriate to the land on the preceding January first will be available at
tax roll time.
Thus, the update process may involve the flagging of changed schedules and
the creation of a separate transition file, on disk or tape, containing these
special changes. This file would be utilized with the main file in the pre-
paration of reports and analysis by the assessor and would , after preparation -
of tax notices , be used to complete the update of the main real estate file.
Colorado state law currently requires that the full legal definition of each
property appear on the tax roll entry pertaining to the property. As a result,
legal descriptions must be recorded and maintained up to date in a file which
will permit the "legals" to be merged with account and value data for the
preparation of the tax roll . Unfortunately, the legal description now required
is not amenable to normal data processing methods. The length and form of
these legals ranges from simple block and lot designations to elaborate metes
and bounds descriptions requiring many lines of alphabetic and numeric data.
In an attempt to reduce the extent of variation among legal descriptions and
to increase their utility as indicators of the geographic location of each
parcel , a 14 digit numbering system has been proposed by the State Tax Commission.
Arbitrary Township Quarter
County Code and Range Code Section Section Block Lot
00 0000 00 0 00 000
Unfortunately, it appears that it will be some time before the numbering system
is accepted in lieu of the full legal description. Thus, even though assessors
- 60 -
may elect to initiate and maintain use of the numbering system for its locational
advantages , the legal description must also be recorded and maintained, at
least until the existing law has been changed.
The current structure of the Weld County real property file incorporates the
legal description of each property within the individual record of owners and
property address and value data. To overcome some of the inefficiency due to
the size and great variability of legal descriptions, this particular item is
compressed by the computer into a more compact code which, when the legal is
needed for use, is expanded in preparation for normal processing.
While such an approach reduces some of the storage inefficiencies created by
the nature of the "legals" , it does not eliminate the need to dedicate signifi-
- cant storage within an active file to a relatively inactive data set.
Further, the placement of the legal with each record within the active area
of the file also may be expected to result in the need to rebuild the entire
file when the decision to purge legal descriptions from the file is finally
made.
For these reasons, the El Paso County assessment system is structured with
a split real estate file containing the "header" and "value" data for each
property in one file and the legal definition of each property on another file.
The parcel numbering system described above which provides a unique identifica-
tion of data relevant to each property is utilized to sequence data within
each file and to merge data from these two type files. While this approach
accomplishes the end of freeing the active "header and value" file of the
relatively inactive legal data, it does have several serious disadvantages.
Principal among these are the disadvantages resulting from the fact that data
- 61 -
relevant to the same properties reside on two physically, rather than just
functionally, separate files. As a result, the processing of splits and other
file modifications involving changes in the legal definition of a parcel
requires the processing of two separate files. Thus, it is necessary to
organize file maintenance routines to permit such updates to be processed
separately from those not affecting the legal description file.
It is proposed that the legal descriptions be reorganized in a file structure
which will embody the advantages of both the Weld County and El Paso County
systems. This suggested configuration records the header and value data of
all parcels in one file and the legal descriptions in a separate file on the
same storage unit. Correspondence between data on individual parcels in the
two files is maintained by a locational reference number (assigned by the
computer) . This number permits the computer to immediately and automatically
search the legal description of any parcel and to make modifications to the
description as part of normal updates to any data relating to that parcel .
This permits modification of the legal description of a parcel without requiring
changes to be made in the location of other (header and value) data concerning
that parcel , even though the storage requirements of the legal definition
may change and so require it to be moved to a new location. If the location
of the legal description of a parcel should be changed the new location is
automatically determined by the computer and stored with the header and value
data, thus preserving reference capabilities between the two files.
This kind of file structure has several distinct advantages. First, header
and value data, the most active portion of the file, is maintained in a greatly
reduced section of storage, permitting more rapid accessing of such data for
various parcels for use in file maintenance as well as many assessment; e.g. ,
- 62 -
abstract, certification and work planning; and non-assessment; e.g. , growth
monitoring and land use analysis , functions. Second, separation of legal
data permits more efficient use of techniques of compacting to reduce the space
allocated to the storage of legals.
As indicated earlier, the length of legal descriptions varies greatly. In
Weld County, the longest legal encountered thus far requires nearly 1 ,900
spaces while the shortest consumes less than 20 spaces. In reserving storage
space for any item of information, provision must be made to accommodate the
maximum condition. One way to do this is to reserve that much room for every
parcel . This is terribly expensive (a county of 50,000 parcels would be
required to set aside space for 95,000,000 characters and would provide no
assurance that an even longer legal might be encountered one day and invalidate
the system. Clearly, the use of such a system would result in a terrible
waste of storage space; if the average length of a legal were even as great
as 150 spaces , approximately 87 ,500,000 spaces would be left unused.
Fortunately, it is possible, through a variety of techniques, to vary the
amount of space dedicated to a legal description in accordance with the length
of each individual legal description. This is accomplished by providing the
computer with a set of building blocks from which it may build, in modular
fashion, a space large enough to store each legal no matter what its size.
A simple form of this system is currently used in Weld County. The computer
is instructed to store each legal description in a chain of modules, each
able to store 50 characters. The number of modules used is that number
required to store all of the legal . In the current system, if the legal is
120 characters long, three modules are used, the last containing blanks in
- 63 -
the last 30 spaces. If a smaller module is chosen, some inefficiencies are
introduced to the operations required by the computer for a larger number of
modules for each legal , but the amount of storage space wasted is reduced.
Modules of 25 spaces for example, would waste only five spaces at the end of
a 120 character legal , or a maximum of 24 spaces for any length legal .
It is possible to further refine the system by the use of modules of various
sizes. Under this system, the size of the shortest legal is determined and
is used as the initial building block. This module could be expected to
accommodate all legals composed of lot and block designations. The second
block would then be sized to accommodate the overflow of shorter legal
descriptions beyond the capacity of the first module. Such a system would
be intended to minimize the number of modules necessary for each legal ,
while retaining the ability to accommodate all with as little total wasted
space as possible.
- 64 -
SECTION VI
SUMMARY OF APPROACHES TO DATA PROCESSING
AUTO-APPRAISAL ALTERNATIVES
A major benefit of the auto-appraisal methodology studied in the course
of this project is its compatibility with virtually any data processing
configuration which the Assessor may wish to implement. While additional
data relevant to the characteristics of each property must be entered into
the system to permit calculation of appraised values , the storage require-
ments of this data should be no greater than that required by any other
computerized appraisal process. Similarly, the computational requirements
of applying such a process to each property may be more than met by the
capabilities of any data processing equipment capable of supporting the
Assessor's accounting function .
This method may be applied in any of several configurations involving
various mixes of State and County participation. As a completely central-
ized process , the State Tax Commission may, utilizing a data base composed
of sample properties from each county, develop equations to be applied
either statewide or on a regional basis by the individual assessment
offices. Such an approach would be expected to achieve significant econo-
mies by the use of a single set of technical personnel and avoidance of
duplication in the process of developing these equations. On the other
hand, the counties , or the State, must bear the cost of periodically
furnishing sample property records in a format compatible with a State
statistical system.
- 65 -
At the other end of the spectrum, each county, or groups of counties, may
develop their own equations from their own data base. The State role
would then be to evaluate the suitability of these equations in the light
of recorded sales data, desired levels of inter-county uniformity, and
statistical accuracy. This evaluative process may utilize a smaller and
less dynamic data base than that required for the development of statewide
equations by the commission and so may reduce, somewhat, the County-State
reporting costs. This would, however, be at the expense of duplication in
local personnel and processing by each county to develop these equations .
The State Tax Commission is currently working toward the computerization
of the Residential Replacement Cost Manual . While this approach is more
simple conceptually and closer to traditional methods , it is felt to retain
several disadvantages reduced or eliminated by the approach examined in
this study. The first of these disadvantages is that continued use of the
manual , even in an automated form, will require continued gathering of the
large amount of subjective and objective data currently recorded by the
appraisers , thus eliminating the possibility of significant savings from
reduced field time or a reduction in the variability of subjective data.
Moreover, this large data base, currently residing on the grid card only,
must be input to an automated file and maintained on that file. This
task will not only increase the volume of accounting work required by the
Assessor, but also greatly expend the size of the file which he must store
within the system.
Finally, the large amount of core or secondary storage which will be
necessary to maintain the many tables which comprise the manual will
- 66 -
dictate the use of an extremely large system for the calculation of appraised
values. Thus, unless these tables can be, themselves , converted to adequate
equations and periodically updated in that form, it will be necessary to
centralize appraisal for all counties desiring automated appraisals on one
or a very few large facilities. Under such a system, the Assessor must
insure that his file structures and processing routines are capable of pro-
viding for the input of data to and output of appraisals from a State
appraisal system.
The selection of an approach to the automated calculation of appraised
values will be based on such considerations and on a variety of political
decisions at both the County and State levels . The intent of this portion
of this study is to identify these considerations and to outline processes
to insure that the design and selection of such approaches are compatible
with other elements of the assessment system.
ACCOUNTING
The file structures and maintenance and reporting routines developed and
currently in use in the Weld County assessment office appear to be quite
well suited to the accounting functions for which they are now utilized.
The design of the form used for maintenance of the "real estate record"
file is particularly good and may provide a useful modification of systems
operating in other counties of the State.
The implementation of either a State or County system of automated appraisals,
additional reports required by various State agencies , and the growing need
to utilize assessment data for planning purposes will , however, place an
- 67 -
increasing load on the system. The Assessor must design his system with the
flexibility which will not only permit response to each of these demands ,
but will provide the most rapid recovery from the costs of each response.
That is , the Assessor can no longer afford to manipulate his files for
internal or external reasons in a manner which interrupts the normal
execution of other necessary file maintenance and report generation. The
costs incurred by non-data-processing counties in the preparation of the
new State Internal Revenue Service listings is an example of the situation
which must be avoided. Data processing does not, by itself, eliminate such
problems , but only translates portions of the costs from personnel time to
machine time.
The approaches to file structure outlined above are intended to provide for
the efficient execution of current tasks and to allow adequate flexibility
for response to anticipated types of demands from other sources. Without
question , steps should be taken, as defined herein , to development of a
system which will improve assessment tasks as well as fulfilling the needs
of other data users at County and State levels.
- 68 -
•
WELD COUNTY ASSESSOR AND TREASURER 1970-71
DATA PROCESSING COSTS
•
•
Systems
• $ 100. 00 Personal Property Maintenance - 10 hours @,$10.00/hour
1,500. 00 Personal Property Rewrite - 150 hours @ $10.00/hour
200. 00 Real Property Maintenance - 20 hours @ $10. 00/hour
200. 00 Tax Accounting Maintenance - 20 hours @ $10. 00/hour
1,750. 00 Tax Accounting Rewrite - 175 hours @ $10.00/hour
$3,750. 00 Total Systems Cost
Run Cost
$4,462.50 Personal Property Production - 51 hours (see attached)
7,175. 00 Real Property Production - 82 hours (see attached)
7,306.25 Tax Accounting Production - 832 hours (see attached)
$18,943. 75 Total Run Cost
Auxiliary Equipment
$1,080. 00 6 disk packs @ $15.00/pack/month
40. 00 2 magnetic tapes @$20.00 each
2, 174. 40 2 - 029 keypunch machines @ $89. 00 + $1.60 tax/month each
2,076.72 2 - 059 Verifier machines @ 585. 00 + $1. 53 tax/month each
$5,371. 12 Total Auxiliary Equipment
•
December 1, 1970 to December 1, 1971
$ 3,750. 00 Systems
18,943.75 Run Cost
5,371. 12 Auxiliary Equipment
$28,064. 87 One (1) year Total Cost or $2,338.74/month
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