[Home | Overview | Syllabus | Schedule | Links]

Overview

County Assessor's are responsible for a number of government functions. While the specific services that County Assessment varies from county to county, most provide a number of core services. For example, the Washington County Assessor provides the following services:

• Tax Collections: Collection of property taxes, special assessments, LID assessments; preparation and control of refunds; foreclosures proceedings; and tax accounting.
  
• Appraisal: Appraisal of real property and manufactured structures; preparation of ratio studies; explanation and review of appraisals; processing of exemption applications.
  
• Appeals: Appeals of real property values.
  
• Mapping & Records: Maintain county mapping of tax lots, ownership, legal description and GIS basemap; record and file permanent records of deeds, mortgages, contracts and tax liens; maintain current tax district boundaries; operation of records retention program for the county
  
• Support Services: Coordinate data processing needs for the Department; provide assistance to the public; secretarial assistance; maintain personal property records and values; administer veterans' exemption, and senior
  citizen deferral program; passport accepting agent.

Planners use assessment information for a variety of purposes. Most land use actions involve one or more tax lots. Assessment data provides useful information on ownership, legal description, and a number of other variables.

Assessor's typically use the TRS system for legal descriptions. The TRS system dates back to the original U.S. Public Lands Survey. Penn State has an excellent site that describes the U.S. Public Lands Survey and the TRS system.

Following are sample assessment and taxation maps from the City of McMinnville. The first map is the Index map. The index map covers the entire city and allows easy identification of specific assessment maps. The next map is also an index. This map, however is the index for Section 16. You can also view the quarter section maps for 4416ab and 4416bb. The quarter section maps show individual tax lots, subdivision plats, and sometimes lot dimensions and areas.

Each tax lot falls within a specific levy district. For example, all of the tax lots in map 4416ab fall within levy district 40.0. A levy district is used for taxation purposes. Each levy code has a total tax rate (See http://www.co.yamhill.or.us/Assessor/rates.htm for rates in McMinnville and Yamhill County). More information is available on Yamhill County's assessment function at http://www.co.yamhill.or.us/Assessor/. 

A typical assessment database structure might look like this one taken from Jackson County:

Tax Lot Attributes

Field Name	Sample Values	Definition
Maplot	1S2W1301500, 391E05AC1113	Combination of the map and tax lot number which provides a unique key to the map.
Mapnum	361W16A, 393E	Map Number: Township, range, and section identification.
Taxlot	100, 4700, 416	Tax lot number.
Account	10052591, 10305713	Account number assigned by the Assessor's Office. The numbers begin with a "1" to represent real property. Note that there can be mutiple accounts for a single tax lot.
Lottype	A1, A2, V3	Ax-Fx: Separately assessed improvements; CA: Common Area
Feeowner	Thayer Don, Lindsey Maya	The person(s) holding fee title to the tax lot. Note that there can be additional fee holders.
Contract	Chisum Rollie, Ricks Stanley C	Any contract purchaser(s) of the tax lot. Note that there can be additional agents.
Nadesc	1980 Foreclosure, US Forest Service	Nonassessable Description: Provided for certain nonassessed properties to help identify what agency might have jurisdiction for the property (for example, the fee owner may simply display as 'U S A', but the description may indicate BLM).
Address1	333 W 8th, PO Box 467	The first line of the mailing address.
Address2	10th Floor, 115 W College Dr	The second line of the mailing address, if used.
City	Eagle Point, Santa Rosa	The city for mailing.
State	OR, CA, MN	The state for mailing.
Commsqfoot	15260, 0, 523	Commercial Square Footage: The commercial land square footage.
Acreage	0.12, 153.29	The tax lot size in acres.
Impvalue	63600, 1450	The improvement true cash value.
Landvalue	41700, 51460	The land true cash value.
Naacreage	18845.14, 16.92	Nonassessable Acreage: Acres not assessed for tax purposes.
Nacode	41, 40, 42	Nonassessable Code: Defines why it is nonassessable. See Code Listing.
Naimpval	45000, 3662310	Nonassessable Improvement Value: Improvement value of nonassessed property.
Nalandval	46750, 21420	Nonassessable Land Value: Land value of nonassessed property.
Lotdepth	130, 156, 100	Depth of tax lot.
Lotwidth	112, 65, 100	Width of tax lot.
Propclass	101, 131, 700	Property Class: Code for use of property. See Property Class listing.
Addressnum	939, 100, 4283	Address Number: Street number for property.
Streetname	Ridge Way, Oak St	Street name for property.
Buildcod	131, 141, 502	Building Code: Code for use of buildings. See Building Classification listing.
Yearblt	1991, 1953	Year Built: The year the structure was built.
Taxcode	4901, 401, 502	Code identifying the taxing rates for the property.
Ownersort	JAMES, RASMU, LAY	First five characters of the Fee Owner. Used for faster queries.
Addsort	2450, 150, 321	First five characters of the Address Number. Used for faster queries.
TRSsort	381W1, 402E2	First five characters of the Feeowner. Used for faster queries.

Geographic Information Systems

County Assessor's and local planning departments are increasingly relying on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to manage assessment and planning information. Jackson County (www.smartmap.org) and the Metro Data Resources Center (http://storefront.metro-region.org/drc/) provide a good overview of what local governments are doing with GIS.

Most sites include a data dictionary that provides a detailed summary of the data structure and format. It is crucial to understand the contents and limitations of any data set prior to using it for analysis or planning purposes.

[Home | Overview | Syllabus | Schedule | Links]

This page maintained by Bob Parker
February 18, 2002