Top Priorities
Successful Implementation of Puma (Premier Utah Mass Appraisal System)
Under my leadership, Salt Lake County has led the way in the development of this statewide valuation system. The functionality of Puma will provide all of Utah’s 29 counties with a comprehensive system that meets their needs for all categories of property and will standardize the assessment/valuation process throughout Utah by giving every county the option and feasibility of being on the same valuation system. The successful implementation of Puma is very critical, because it is very important that every assessor has the tools they need to ensure that every category of property is at Fair Market value every year. Having every property type at market value helps ensure that there is a more accurate, equitable, uniform, and fair distribution of values and ultimately of tax dollars. I never want any taxpayer to pay the wrong amount of taxes because we got their valuation incorrect. I would encourage all of you to visit the Utah State Tax Commission website and review the annual sales ratio study and audit so that you can see how Salt Lake County is leading the way and setting the standard for accurate, equitable, uniform, and fair valuations for every county in the state to follow.
Successful Implementation of Statewide Personal Property System
Salt Lake County is leading the way once again in the development of the statewide Personal Property system. The functionality of the statewide Personal Property system will provide all the 29 Utah counties with a comprehensive system that meets their needs and will standardize the Personal Property valuation process throughout Utah by giving every county the option and feasibility of being on the same statewide Personal Property valuation system. Ultimately, this standardization will lead to more accurate, equitable, uniform, and fair valuations for every taxpayer throughout Utah.
Continue to perform a comprehensive and detailed review of all processes in the office in order to gain more efficiencies, economies of scale, as well as to streamline processes.
I am always committed and dedicated to maximize efficiency, production, and transparency while always respecting and protecting taxpayer dollars. Current Utah State Auditor John “Frugal” Dougall conducted an audit of every county assessor in the state in 2023. Auditor Dougall gave me and my office high praise and accolades for the transparency and good work of the Salt Lake County Assessor’s Office. During a news release on July 26, 2023 Auditor Dougall stated, “We appreciate the support of many dedicated and hardworking county assessors and their interest in greater transparency. I’d especially like to thank Chris Stavros, Salt Lake County Assessor, for his excellent feedback, responsiveness in sending and improving data, and his vision for how greater transparency can improve county assessment processes.”
Expand and Refine Commercial Modeling and all Valuation Processes
During my three years as Salt Lake County Assessor, I have managed and oversaw the successful implementation of Commercial Income Regression Models for commercial condos, offices, apartments, industrial, and retail. My commercial valuation program has resulted in more accurate, uniform, and fair valuations for all major commercial use types. My goal is to expand and refine the commercial modeling process to include service garages, neighborhood and community centers, as well as any other commercial use types that we have adequate market data to support building Income Regression models for valuation. Commercial income models for all of the major commercial use types has solidified and elevated the Salt Lake County Assessor’s Office to the forefront and leader in the state with regard to accurate commercial valuations. Under my leadership, the Salt Lake County Assessor’s Office has become one of the leaders in the nation and the leader in the state of Utah when it comes to mass appraisal of commercial properties. I would like to also expand the automation of the Assessor’s Office year end review process to ensure the highest level of accuracy and fairness in our valuation assessments.
Expand and improve our overall quality control process and procedures to ensure more accurate and fair valuations for the taxpayers of Salt Lake County.
I want to use AI to improve and streamline our quality control processes and error detection. We are currently refining the process of comparing our existing street view images, orthogonal and oblique aerial images, GIS layers, as well as building footprints against our property characteristic data in order to detect data errors, as well as any inconsistencies in our data. I am never satisfied and I am pushing our staff constantly to always have the most accurate data on every property. Accurate data leads to more accurate assessments. Even though we have exceeded the Utah State Tax Commission’s sales ratio and audit standards every year, I am pushing hard every day to deliver the highest quality product to our citizens every day while always respecting and protecting taxpayer dollars. I have always delivered the highest level of service every year as your Salt Lake County Assessor under budget.
Continue to hire the most qualified and competent staff into the Assessor’s Office.
This is my goal and motivation every year. I work very closely with my leadership team to hire, mentor, develop, and retain the best, most productive, and the most qualified and competent staff. In addition, I have developed and administered a very successful “Cross-Training” Program. My goal is to develop Subject Matter Experts in every major department in my office so that we always have employees that understand the intricacies and dynamics of every aspect and detail of our office operations. The Cross-Training program I have developed is designed to give our best employees exposure to the most critical aspects and statutory responsibilities of our office in order to ensure that we have well trained people developed and ready to move into critical positions in our office going forward. I am very proud of this program because it will ensure that the Assessor’s Office is well staffed going forward with the most competent people for many years.
Continue to work hard every year at the Legislature to protect taxpayers from unfair tax shifts.
As your Assessor, I have led out on this issue from day one in office. I have spent many hours educating the Mayor, County Council, as well as other lawmakers on the implications of unfair tax shifts on the citizens of Salt Lake County. I am very proud of my record and my hard work at the legislature. I have always opposed any legislation that creates or exacerbates unfair tax shifts or tax burdens on the citizens of this wonderful county. I have also worked closely with legislators to always support legislation that is in the best interest of the people and the taxpayers. I want every citizen to know that their Salt Lake County Assessor, Chris Stavros, is always fighting for them. I take my responsibility and obligation to the citizens of Salt Lake County very seriously every day. As long as I am the Assessor, my highest priority will always be to respect and protect taxpayer dollars. I am also motived and committed to always provide the highest level of service to the public because they deserve nothing less.
Under my leadership, the Assessor’s Office has had lazer focus on dramatically reducing repeat appeals as well as the overall property tax appeal rate. With the help of my outstanding staff, our office has reduced property tax appeal rates to historic lows. During my time as Chief Deputy Assessor and now as your Salt Lake County Assessor, our office has reduced property tax appeal rates to the lowest appeal rates in over 40 years. The overall appeal rate, under my leadership, is less than 1% of the total parcel count which is truly remarkable. To put this into perspective, Salt Lake County has over 387,000 parcels or properties and we have lowered the appeal rate to less than 1%.
Eventhough the Assessor’s Office, under my watch, has “historically low appeal rates”, I am never satisfied. I want the taxpayers to know that I am committed to take a very “deep dive” into the 1% of the properties that do appeal and diagnose the issues on these appeals in order to streamline and improve the process overall going foward. One appeal is too many in my book. I want the taxpayers to know that if we are wrong, we will fix it. When we are right and our valuation is correct, it is very important for us to defend those appeals at every level of the appeal process in order to help protect taxpayers from erroneous valuation reductions that result in unfair tax shift burdens to the citizens.
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