Good evening. Welcome to this regular meeting of the board of estimate and taxation for March 25th, 2026. I'm Steve Brandt, president of the board of estimate. [snorts] Before we begin the meeting, I'd like to ask the clerk to
remind our speakers to pace themselves. If you would, Paul, before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.
These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the
broadcast. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. >> Okay. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the role so we can verify the presence of a quorum. >> Commissioner Chugtai is absent. Fry is
absent. Olsen >> here. Payne >> present. >> Vice President Bernstein >> present. President Brandt, >> let the record reflect uh here. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum. I will now offer an acknowledgement that
we meet today on land that historically has been in the hands of the Dakota and Anishab and also acknowledge the historical trauma that has resulted from the dispossession of that land. We'll now proceed to our agenda, a copy of which
was posted for public access to the city's legislative information management system, which is available at lims. Minneapolis.gov. Board members, the uh agenda for today is before us. May I have a motion to
adopt, please? >> So moved. >> Seconded. >> Okay, we have a motion before us. Is there any discussion that u see none uh all those in favor say I oppose say nay. >> Eyes have it. The agenda is adopted.
Next is the acceptance of the minutes from our meeting of January 28th our organizational meeting. Uh may I please have a motion to accept the minutes? >> Second. >> Okay we have a proper motion before us.
Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed say nay. The eyes have it. The minutes are accepted as presented. Item four on the agenda today is the acceptance of public comment. While we
have closed the public hearing on the levy, it is board standard to receive comment on any other agenda items. Clerk informs me that we have no one signed up to testify today. However, I just want to offer a reminder to the public that uh you have the opportunity to speak for
two minutes on any item that is on the board's agenda for any given meeting. Um so I will uh next move on to our unfinished business. Um the next item is receiving and filing the quarter 3
report. At our last meeting, we lost quorum and couldn't properly file this report. Are there any questions? Okay. I will ask the clerk to receive and file that report. Up next is the assessor's presentation on the 2026 city
assessment, and I will ask city assessor Rebecca Malmquist to give that report, please. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. As the president mentioned, my name is Rebecca Malquist. I have the honor of serving as the city of Minneapolis city
assessor, [snorts] and I'm just thanking you in advance for um inviting me to present this annual assess report to you. It is a repeat of the assessment report that was provided to the committee of the whole yesterday. And
with that, we will just jump in and get started. First, a highle summary and some reminders. We recently completed the January 2nd, 2026 assessment of market values for the approximate 131,000
properties in across the city. This is an annual process and is dictated in state statute. The value notices of val or the notices of valuation classification commonly referred to as the value notices have been mailed. We mailed those on March 13th. It's important to remind the audience that
the 2026 estimated market values are used to calculate next year's 2027 property taxes. We value properties in one year, then the budget and levy are set, and then taxes are payable the following year. We know this can be
confusing because property tax statements are mailed at approximately the same time as our value notices. The payable 2026 property tax statements that property owners are receiving now were calculated using last year's 2025 assessed values. Another important
reminder is that the data that we use to set the annual assessment is also dictated by statute. For the January 2nd, 2026 assessment, we analyze market-based sales transactions that occurred between October of 2024 and
September of 2025. In Minnesota, property taxes provide a significant portion of the funding for local government. Property taxes are Minneapolis's general fund's largest and most flexible source of income and support many of our core governmental
services. Every property share of taxes is based on its market value, the property use, and local government budgets, which then become the tax rate. You can see the image at the bottom of the screen for a simplified illustration.
Market value. Market value is the price a property would sell for in the open market. The assessor's role is to reflect real estate market transactions and set fair and accur accurate market values by following the market trends.
The assessor also classifies property according to its use. Different uses of properties, even if they have the same value, pay different taxes because of the tax rates that are set by the state legislature. I will provide an example of that in just a moment. And then the
tax rate. This is determined using the budgets of the local government such as city, county, school district, and watersheds. The intermediary step in converting value to taxes is called the tax capacity. This slide illustrates how
this works for some common types of properties in the city. The calculation for tax capacity is the market value which is in the second column multiplied by the class rate in the third column. For example, as you can see here, a residential property on the first line
and a commercial property on the bottom line, both assessed at $300,000 will pay different taxes. And that's because the class rate for a residential property is 1% and the class rate for a commercial property is 2%. As a result, a residential property will pay
approximately half the property taxes of a commercial property. I must note that this is a very simplistic model, however, illustrating the tax calculation. There are more complex factors that affect taxes such as special taxing programs like the homestead, state general tax, and fiscal
disparities. This slide is a historical view of the city's total estimated market value. The overall estimated market value or EMV as we refer to it for the city increased by just under 1 half of percent this year
to $65.2 billion. This does not include the utilities and railroad values, however, because these are assessed by the state and those values are available in this summer. This does include new construction added for permit work
totaling approximately $480 million. >> [clears throat] >> This slide is a visualization of the breakdown of the three major property type categories by the 2026 total market value which is on the left and the tax capacity on the right. Because of the
calculation of tax value to tax discussed on the previous slide, there is a change in the distribution between the three categories when we move from market value to tax capacity. You can see here that residential values
are in which are in green comprise over 64% of the total city market value on the left. However, when the class rates are applied, the residential portion of the tax capacity is just over 55%. You can see the commercial value in blue
comprises 14% of the total market value of the city. However, comprises nearly 25% of the tax capacity after the rates are applied. Now, let's take a look at the history of the net tax capacity in the city.
So, if we compare 2025 to 2026, which are the two bars to the furthest right, you can see here a year-to-year shift between commercial, apartment, and residential properties, is just over 2% from commercial to residential with
apartments remaining constant. Overall, this means that residential properties will bear a greater burden of taxes payable in 2027 than they did in 2026. This slide illustrates the change in total market value across all property
types by ward. Each ward is represented by a bar and the bar and the percent or of increase or decreases at the end of each bar. You can see here we had increases most significantly significantly in wards 11, 12, and 13
and did see decreases in wards 2, five, and 10. This is a historical look at the total residential value changes. This year, the overall market value increased by 2.8% which is pretty consistent across
Henipin County as well. While the previous slide illustrates an overall market value increase for residential properties, this slide further breaks down the data into the three major property types for residential properties. Condominium town
homes are grouped, duplex type triplexes are grouped, and then our single family category. Overall, there were increases in each of these submarkets, and there was approximately $127 million in new construction, which was added this year.
Our assessment is very closely scrutinized by the state to ensure accuracy and equity. We follow requirements mandated by by by the state which are based on the international association of assessing officers standards on ratio studies and
standards on mass appraisal. The data reflects the this data reflects the residential market. The analysis is of properties that have sold so that we can compare the assessed values to what they are selling for to analyze how accurate
and equitable values com are in comparison to sale prices. The first measurement I'll review is the sales ratio which is the third column. This is a measure of the level of assessment. It is a comparison of the estimated market value to the sale price of the property.
Simply stated, it is the sale price divided by the market value. And we use the median ratio as our measure of central tendency. So looking at the bottom row of the 3,952 sales, the median ratio was just over
95%. An acceptable median ratio by international standards is 90 to 105%. But we do not want to be significantly different than any other we do not want to be at a significantly
different level of assessment than other surrounding jurisdictions. For example, we don't want to be valuing properties at a median of 95% when surrounding suburbs or cities are at 90%. So again, the level of assessment needs to be consistent. We do have
conversations across city across the city border to ensure that we had do have this consistency with other jurisdictions and our assessment does meet this ratio requirement. The second measurement is the coefficient of dispersion. It measures the uniformity
of the assessment. It essentially measures how far away the other ratios are from that 95%. It is well within the accepted range for residential properties which is less than 15 and we so we do meet this requirement being at 8.9.
The last measurement the price related differential is critically important as well. It measures the vertical equity of the assessment. When low valued properties are valued at a greater percentage of market value than higher valued properties, the assessment's
considered regressive. When low-valued properties are valued at a lower percentage than high-valued properties, the assessment is considered progressive. Assessments for tax purposes should be neither progressive or regressive. Our
overall residential assessment is well within the acceptable range for the PRD with condos being just slightly outside and so we continue to watch keep this on our internal watch list. However, um 103 would
is a very good result for the um condominium and town home assessment this year. This is a historical look at the required statistical measures that we just went over um that the state judges us on for accuracy and equity. It's
important to point out that we have seen a decrease in sales volume since the peak in 2022. The 3,952 sales represent a 41% decrease. And the more sales we have, the more data we have, the more
easy and efficient and effective it is to set the assessment. This slide illustrates the comparison of the median sale price in blue to the median market value in orange. These lines should be close together and moving in the same direction. You can
see that this measurement truly does that. Our medium EMV increased by 4.6% 6% from 333,400 to 348,900. This illustrates the breakdown of residential value changes by the
percentage change from 2025 to 2026. So nearly 54% of properties saw an increase up to 5%. This is a map of the single family residential changes by parcel and by ward. It just reinforces the bar chart that we looked at earlier with increases
in wards 11, 12, and 13. This is a ward comparison of residential values and the same statistical measurements we discussed earlier. The columns to the left are the 2025 and 2026 total market values, the amount of new construction, and the net change in
total value. Moving across the chart is the median EMV, the number of sales, the median sale price, as well as the sales ratio in CoodOd. What I want to mention here is that the range of sales ratios is 94.16 to 96.16 indicating our level
of assessment across the city is quite consistent. Also the COOD or measure of uniformity across the city ranges from 7.3 to 10.7 again indicating uniform assessments across the city. Here I'm just going to briefly talk
about exemptions and where we're at in the current exemption process. This um is a reapplication year and it's just to note that the work that we do um around exemptions and I will touch on this more in another slide because we have gotten a fair amount of questions
about exempt properties from council over the course of the last year. And so if we break down the exempt values separate from the taxable values, you'll see that the city's total market value taxable is or excuse me, not
taxable, estimated is $65 billion. And then we have about $ 19.5 billion in exempt value. Breaking that down even further, you'll see that in yellow, 40% of that 19.5 billion is for um government-owned
properties. And then following that, the largest amount is 34% of um schools. Just want to quickly talk about exclusions and deferrals because and this is something new that we've added. Just specifically going over the top
portion that we have $132 million that is being excluded from the tax base for the veterans exclusion program for disabled vets. And then we have $1.1 billion that's being excluded for the homestead market value exclusion. And
that represents 1.92% of our total market value in the city. Let's pivot over to the commercial assessment. Separating commercial from industrial, you'll see an overall decrease of 9.8%
8% in commercial and about a small decrease of about 1% in the industrial market combined totals about an 8% decrease overall across the entire city. This is a historical look at the
commercial industrial market values. Again, we saw an overall decrease again this year in 2026. To tell a more complete story, we've broken down the markets into geographical submarkets. This slide separates out the downtown and the uptown markets, the commercial markets
outside of downtown and uptown, and then the industrial market. You can see here that we saw overall decreases across all of these geographic market segments. Reviewing the commercial industrial ratio statistics, the median and COOD
are within the acceptable range and the PRD is slightly higher. And again, this will be on our watch list for the 2027 assessment. A quick look at the apartment market. There was a net increase of just under 1% for the apartment market. We did add
$271 million in new construction and that is the largest portion of the new construction that was added this year. Again, the statistical measurements are all within the acceptable range. And I just want to point out here that the PRD in recent years has been out of range.
It's been over 103. And we were able to tighten that and um make the assessment more accurate. And so just proud of our team in their efforts there. Moving on to the notices of evaluation and classification. As I mentioned earlier, they are in mailboxes. They're
colorcoded in blue this year. So then the TNT statements when they're mailed this fall and the tax statements mailed next year will also be colorcoded in blue. If owners have questions regarding their value, they should contact the appraiser that's listed on the back of their notice. The appraiser's name and
phone number and email address are on the back of the notice. But if they have questions about the homestead, they should contact Henipin County and that information is also on their notice. Here are some of the public tools and resources that we have available to property owners. On the top left is
property info. They can look up all the information that we have about properties and that's property data that we maintain as well as other departments um maintain. So that's a collaborative effort. The bottom left is a salesfinder tool so that property owners if they
question the market value that we've derived, they have a tool here to be able to find sales to help them in their research and analysis. The top right is the levy impact estimator which gets used this summer and fall as the levy starts to come into picture. And then
the bottom right hand side is just are just more tools and statistics and data for property owners to use when they're researching the property value, their own property value. Some key dates. Um the second line, the local board of appeal equalization convenes on April
14th and we will continue to convene day after day until all the cases have been heard. Then if property owners are still unhappy with the local board's decisions, they can appeal to Henipin County and Henipin County Board of Appeal and Equalization convenes on June 15th. Our staff will continue to work on
those appeals. It's just presented to the county board instead of the local board. And this is just something that we like to give a heads up so that you know where we are going to be at this summer as far as our residential team to do the
annual quintile assessment which is when our appraisers are out in the field going doortodoor and visiting properties. So they will our appraisers will be in the light blue colored neighborhoods this year. And with that President Brent that concludes my
report. Thank you. >> Are there questions? >> Um, I don't know who was first. We'll start with the most senior member. Okay. >> No questions. Okay, Mr. Bernstein. >> Question. >> Thank you so much. That was great. Um,
I've got just a couple quick technical questions that'll be very easy for you, I'm sure. Um, I just wanted to confirm that I understood correctly the timeline that you laid out. So the data comes from October 24 to September 25. That's the data that is that the assessment
that we just got um couple in the last couple weeks um is based on. And then that is the basis for taxes that we will pay starting in May of 27. First payment May of 27. Is that right >> to the president and commissioner?
That's correct. >> Okay. Cool. And then I got one more. Sure. >> Um the um could you tell me a little bit more about the price ratio statistic? I understand that essentially it's it's a
measure of comparing something like a median sales ratio up and down the sale price spectrum. Is that correct? Is like are there specific points along that distribution that they compare it to or how how does that work? And if that's
something you want to follow up on, I totally understand. Um, no. Um, President Brandt, Commissioner, so yes, the sales ratio is a comparison of the estimated market value to the sale price of a property. And that when you aggregate and you bring all the data
together, we need to be overall somewhere between 90 and 105%. We typically target 95%. as the median ratio when you add when you look at all the sales so that we
know that not too many are being valued over 100% or being undervalued and then if you could explain the rest of your question I might have used the term I think that might have been my fault I the question was about
>> sorry it's one of these three the price related differential sorry that one >> price related differential >> I understand it's a measure of the vertical equity of the assessments so that you're adjusting for like higher value homes not having a larger or a
smaller um you know ratio than other than the lower value homes. I'm just curious if you know anything more about like what points along that spectrum they take data from or how that works >> to the president and commissioners. We
as far as data points we use every sale. We'll calculate that for every sale. >> Okay. Okay. And so what we're saying here is if we have a property, a residential property valued at $5 million, no, sorry, a residential property that
sells for $5 million, we don't want to be valuing it at $3 million, right? Because that's way undervalue. at the same hand for a $100,000 property, we don't want to be valuing that one at 105%. Because if you just
had those two sales, we would have a regressive assessment. Okay? So, we want the higher valued properties to be valued just as high as they're selling for and the lower valued properties to be valued at their same sale price as well. What happens the
tendency is we have a lot more data about the lower valued properties. We have a lot more sales that transact there. We have a lot less sales at the high end of the market. So we have a lot more data to support the lower valued properties. And so sometimes that can
cause it to go a skew. So we have to be very diligent in our work and we have to be very critical of the upper echelon sales to make sure that we are valuing them appropriately and accurately. Any other questions?
>> All right, I'll dig in. Um, you closed your sales um at the end of September. Um, is there any sign of a change for the better or the worst for any of the three major property classes
since you closed your books? Can you give us any any hope here, >> President Brent? That's a great question and that's why I like to say I'm a historian and not a prophesizer. Um, so we do do analysis. We do take um all the
sales that we've collected and verified in that 3month time window between October of 2025 to January of 2026. We do pull those out and do our own analysis on them to make sure we're getting the direction of the assessment
right. So, if we were to take the the 12-mon study that we used and analyze that, okay, then we know this is how much we're going to move values, 2.8%, to get us to that 95% across the market. Um, but then we'll take those three months
of sales or if we have the luxury of maybe even having some of the January 26 sales, we'll take that and study those separately because if those are indicating to us that the market has turned significantly and maybe it's take it's going down now. We don't want to
keep pushing market values higher knowing that there's a turn coming. We're very sensitive to making sure that we analyze all the data whether it's used in our for the state analysis or not that we are looking at those critically as well to make sure that we get the direction of the assessment
correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Um one thing I'm looking for um is change in the tax capacity uh for the city. Um, we've got the EMV change. Um, but the, um, tax capacity,
as you know, is what we apply the tax rate to. And I'm wondering if you can tell us, um, when you run it through the statemandated classification formula, what's happened between 25 and 26?
President Brandt, um I have we don't have the historical tax capacity total dollars because you see that we um our analysis is of the total and then what percentage it is and I we we took out the slide a couple years ago about the
the change in the true tax capacity. So I don't have that number in my head. I apologize, but I do have it back at my desk and so I can provide that to you following the meeting so you can see historically where the tax capacity has gone year-over-year. >> Okay. The reason I ask is that's usually
the first thing I look for in the report. >> Yes. Um I'll remember that for next year. >> Um you know, we had an apartment boom between 2020 and 2024 in which we added an average of $700 million a year in
apartment construction. um we've only um I think that's declined in 25 and it's only 271 million for the past year. Now that 271 million I think you said was higher than the other two classes. So in that sense it's good. But
what's u what's brought that down? Is it um I I know a couple years ago you I think suggested there was an impact from the interest rate increase uh that we're looking at at the federal level. Um, is that continuing to have an impact or is
it a lack? I we I'm sure there were some uh there was some lowhanging fruit in terms of a potential apartment sites uh around the city that were made available by the 2040 plan and a lot of those at least in my neighborhood have been
somewhat um occupied now. Um what what what do you what do you attribute the slowdown in apartment construction to? President Brent, I would really be speculating here if I were to answer that. Now, I can tell you that there are
a couple of things that we have heard from um brokers and buyers and sellers in the market is that um some of it does have to do with the market and interest rates. Um I think there is a lot of
observation around and waiting to see what's going to happen around rent policy and so that probably is factoring into it as well. >> Okay. And u I wondered if that was still lurking in the consciousness of apartment developers.
>> It could be. I'm not saying it is. It's just >> okay >> speculation. >> Although I believe many places and correct me if I'm wrong. uh council members, many places have exempted new construction for a period of years if
I'm remembering right. Um but that's not really before us today. Downtown commercial, this is the fifth straight year of decline and uh the third straight year of a decline of at least 9.5%
in values. That tells me that the market hasn't found a bottom yet. Um any any insight you can give us on that? Uh >> well when you say President Brandt that it hasn't found a bottom yet, maybe it has.
>> Okay. >> Maybe we can all be hopeful it has. Um so President Brandt, um in all seriousness, yes. Again, I would be speculating if I were to say that we think that the market is going to rebound this year. Um we did and you've
heard this um in through the media that we've seen some substantial decreases across our office buildings in the downtown. And so that is what is attributing to the majority of our decrease. >> And of course that's not new, nor is the decline in the uptown area, but
neighborhood commercial up till now seems to have been holding its own. And I see they're down as well. Is that affected by competing spaces downtown and in uptown or is it Do you have any sense of what's driving that?
>> President Brand um again as far as the neighborhood commercial I I can't say I have I can say that we are hearing that um it's unlikely that the uptown market will improve until the
downtown market starts to improve. We've heard that they are so close closely tied together that we will not see improvement from uptown until we see improvement from downtown. Again, this is all things that we hear when people call us about their
property value. Um, but we do have some pretty reputable brokers that we speak with and that provide us some information. Um, I cannot speak to exactly today the decrease in the neighborhood commercial values though. So, it's something I could follow up with staff on and get
back to you if you would if you wish. >> Commissioner Bernstein, >> just uh yeah, along those similar lines, I think probably this would be a followup, but I'm curious about the number of transactions like uh downtown and uptown commercial. Have those changed in the last year? I'm sure I'm guessing you probably don't
know off the top of your head, but um I I would be curious about how those have changed in the last couple years. >> Yes. Um through the president, the number of transactions has stayed fairly consistent the past few years. I
I don't have the number in my head, so I'm not going to cite it. I think it's 89 this year, but I don't remember what the number was last year, but I think we were up just slightly in transactions. But I can get that followup to you as well. Any other questions for Assessor Momquist?
>> I have a couple. >> Go right ahead. Commissioner Olsen. >> Yeah. So, [clears throat] when we see when you refer to new residential construction, single family homes, is that so that's like tear downs of old homes and building new ones. Okay. Cuz I imagine we're not getting new there. Um,
and then I think I saw somewhere I I read somewhere about how because commercial properties, specifically downtown, have decreased so much, you know, [snorts] we are being taken to court and losing quite a bit there. I'm wondering if you could kind of walk through a bit of that process. Is that
costly? Is that difficult? Is or is it pretty kind of, [snorts] you know, uh, procedural? >> Yes. Um, President Brandt and Commissioner, our tax court litigation work overall has picked up over the past few years.
We have nearly, I believe for assessment year 2025, $13 billion under appeal in the tax court. And um that number continues to rise and the number of cases continues to rise which are both
somewhat alarming because we still have the same amount of staff to manage more litigation. And so there are times when we have to make a decisions between stipulating a case before it goes to
litigation or go to litigation. So there's a lot of collaboration between the appraisers in my office and we're represented by the Henipin County Attorney's Office and relation or collaboration with them to make very smart decisions about those that we
bring to trial because once you bring a case to trial, it's in the hands of the judge. We have three tax court judges that serve on the bench and um so we have to be thoughtful about the time it takes for our staff to write the appraisals, prepare for trial and then
sit in trial on the stand and it's very staff intensive time inensive. Um, but I will say that we are having conversations with um both the finance our finance team and city leadership about where we're um projecting that
maybe some of our tax court figures could go and what our losses may be for future years so that it is budgeted for appropriately. >> Okay, thanks for that. And I imagine we're probably maybe the highest in the region where we're seeing that increase. But are other municipalities seeing
similarly, you know, more are other municipalities seeing more litigation in in tax courts. >> President Bratton, Commissioner, no other jurisdiction sees what Minneapolis sees. >> Yeah. And um I don't let me pause there
and say that we are still waiting on final numbers because the deadline to a file a tax support petition is April 30th. So in May we'll have final statistics about where we're landing then and so then we could get back to you and give you more information there
about the current state of tax court petitions. >> That'd be appreciated for sure. Thank you. And one final question. So, you know, there's a sense in certain, you know, commercial hubs uptown for instance, where there are um, you know,
commercial properties which have sat vacant for almost a decade. You know, think of like the old Victoria Secret Building or Chino Latino, you know, what have you. Um are do would your office keep statistics on commercial properties
that have sat vacant for extended period of times on if ownership in those have changes have changed and if so would your office have any sense of you know what is driving those property owners to
continue to hold those spaces vacant? Is it are they waiting for a bottom? Are they waiting for a resurgence and better prices? it's just part of some portfolio that they can stick, you know, somewhere. Um, do do we have any sense of that? >> President Brandt and Commissioner, I
can't necessarily speak on the the latter half because we don't tend to find out that information. Um I I think that it would be easy to understand that not a lot of people like to give the assessor a lot of
information, right? Because of out of fear and lack of education about the work that we do and how educate or information about properties does help us set a better assessment. We tend to be the last one to receive information. So when we speak about vacancies across
the city anywhere, we don't find out about vacancies unless our staff are driving by or through their market reports. But we only find out about true rents and vacancies when they appeal. That is when we receive that confidential information about how the
propertyy's performing. So then we use that information in trial. Um, but we're we really that's all we use it for. And so we use market. So what is the market? We don't use what actual rents are and actual vacancies are. We use what is the
market across a universe of properties. So we let's talk about class C office buildings for example. We look at what is the market vacancy like how much vacancy is there really in the market not what is the actual vacancy of this building and what's the actual vacancy
of that building. If that helps. >> Okay does help. And so there's not really like a an investigatory detective, [snorts] you know, sort of, you know, branch or function in certainly in as I'm hearing in in Minneapolis, but throughout the
nation, there's not really would there be reason for that value to that? Is there >> to the president and commissioner? There are plenty of companies that seek to get in that information and sell that information. >> [clears throat and snorts]
>> And so we do subscribe to some to one specific vendor that tends to have the most information about our market, but otherwise that information is held tightly by the property owners because it is or confidential. >> Okay. And and we're given we receive
that information on a case by case basis or like annual report or >> case by case. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Commissioner Bernstein. uh also very interested in in the vacancies but I just wanted to clarif so the but your assessments are based on
sale only not like the income producing potential of properties is that I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that correctly is that right >> President Brandt and commissioner no we do use utilize all three approaches to value sales comparison income and the cost approach and the income approach is
truly the approach that is relied primarily on for income producing properties That's very helpful. Thank you. Um and then >> um I the conversation about the challenges in tax court also made me wonder I've been noticing in the
financial report that our rate of collection has fallen um for I think over a decade at this point. Are contested property taxes collected or would that potentially arise in challenges be part of the drop in the collection rate?
>> Very good question. President Brandt, Commissioner, um the taxes are paid and then if the we go to go through litigation and they receive a reduction, they do receive taxes back as a refund in addition to interest.
>> So just to be do you think it would affect the collection rate or like so if Yeah. is the collection rate I guess based on the initial assessment or does that somehow get updated I guess is my question. Good question. And I wish Desani CFO was here with me and she could talk about her portion of this,
but for now I will just say actually I met with um the CFO um died just last week about this topic and that um the city does budget at a certain amount of collections and as you have heard
through Mr. Hardgrove's um presentations about collections that they have been down. It's not all because of tax court, but tax court is a portion of that and we are now in the process actually since you asked I'll mention it. We are in the process of putting together um some
reporting on that to be able to report to both CFO and the budget office and mayor's team and council when it comes to budget season so that they can see truly where are they missing the collections. Is has tax court become a greater and greater portion? I have to
be honest and tell you that yes, it has just because there is much more value under appeal and so there's going to be more losses and so yes, it's something that we're we're the city is taking into consideration. >> Fabulous. Thank you. >> You're welcome.
>> All right, seeing no further questions, uh thank you uh Assessor Monquest and I will ask the clerk to receive and file your report. >> Thank you so much for your time. forward to seeing you next year >> and hope the news is better. >> Yes, sir.
>> All right. Um we now move on to announcements. Um I wanted to um uh first of all make sure well do my colleagues have any announcements first of all. >> Okay. All right. I wanted to announce um
just so everybody's aware of it particularly Commissioner Olsen. I'm not sure if you were in the loop or not, but on April 8th, we will have a joint meeting with the city council, uh I believe in this room at 2:00 and that
will be to hear the uh second phase uh study of the alternative revenues um work that's been going on and I'm looking forward to seeing that along with you. Um and so when we adjourn today, we'll adjourn to that time. Uh
the other thing I wanted to mention under announcements is um I have been noodling a list of potential charter changes related to the board of estimate to bring forward for
discussion. Um some of them the board is already already on record as supporting in a couple years ago. Um, but I just wanted to put the sort of the subject matter out there so that people can think about them, give me feedback, tell me I'm all wet, uh, come up with other
ideas. Um, but the general areas are, you know, is is the name that we have for this board appropriate? Uh, I know where Commissioner Bernstein stands on that. Um, is the size appropriate? Should we have a seventh member? Uh we
did go on record I believe a couple years ago of saying we should uh expand the board to a seventh member. So we have a tie-breaking uh board member. Uh should that be a third public uh publicly elected member? Uh that could help address our quorum issues because
the quorum would remain at four but we'd have one more person to help us meet it. uh or uh an alternative idea or perhaps we do both would be uh having a uh charter language that I've talked about uh with council president pay uh that
would potentially allow a backup design from the council for um attendance at board meetings if the for example as has happened from time to time with commissioner Chugai um they're tied up in other council business such as a
settlement conference Um, I'd also like to think about um notwithstanding the council's current exclusive power to uh form committees and commissions, whether there could be
a limited carveout for the board of estimate for matters related to the topics we talk about. And uh we we um we certainly ran into an issue with that when we had the alternative tax study.
And um so those are some areas where I'm I'm thinking um and I'd welcome any feedback. Uh I will try and develop something. I'm trying to really uh figure out whether this is something I want to bring up at our our next meeting on April 8th a regular meeting after the
joint meeting or whether we want to wait on that until um until our staff me our permanent staff member is back from her maternity leave. So um just put that out there for you. Uh, [snorts] seeing no further business come before the board,
without objection, uh, we will adjourn tonight's meeting to Wednesday, April 8th at 2 p.m. for an alternative revenues presentation that'll be given to a joint meeting of the BET and the city council. And do I still get to bang the gavl, Mr. Clerk? All right. All
right. Thank you.