Why are they getting right now?

I don't know.

I started bringing them candy a while back.

I can't stop now.

I know, I know.

I know.

So I never I was never like a sugar eater.

I'm always like solving I have like a firework problem.

I'm a sweetie.

So now I have to do it.

Oh wait, oh there.

Well hello.

You want me to go over there?

I'm excited.

And this is what I'm going to do.

No excuse.

You know my might be wanted to buy that.

Oh, yeah.

That'd be good.

I don't know if Sammy would do it.

I love it.

I like mine downstairs.

I think just like 99 points.

Oh, so I get so much.

Awesome, thanks.

You know what I'm looking at is it counselor?

I think we're like seven meetings on the way.

I can't do it.

No.

Yeah.

Can I give it a little bit more?

How are you?

How are you?

You can do it there.

Yeah.

I would back to the city.

That's okay.

You don't want to handle it.

I need it.

All right, good afternoon, everybody.

Fast and curious.

We are gonna kick off today with our hearing with the assessment department.

Um I'm joined by Councilman Joke, Nave, President Paniagua, Councillor Monto, we have Michael Lehman, and um Matthew I'm blanking on your last name, Matt.

Oh yeah.

OJ Meadow J.

And a very special welcome back to Ms.

Ann Gallagher.

Thank you.

Look at that.

Um great.

Gentlemen, you want to open this up, talk about your department, how it fits into the larger context of the corporation, any you know, big victories, wins, successes, challenges.

Then we can jump into the numbers.

Yeah, so um fundamentally uh pr pr pretty simple.

Um third largest revenue source to the corporation is uh property tax revenue uh ad valorum taxation sets the foundation for that.

We assess the properties.

Uh little little over 41,000 properties in the city of Syracuse.

Our staff undertakes various reassessment projects, produces uh an assessment role every March 31st.

Please do.

Can you please tell us what people are?

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I'm on uh 99.

99.

I'm on 99.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm off script, but our positions are in 99.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so carve up carve up the city um for charter real property tax law into uh assessed values for real property.

Uh we did a little under 6800 assessment changes last year, probably represents about 14,000 reassessments.

Um of course our other chartered remit is of course uh involving the asset management component, which Michael oversees for our staff.

Um leasing and purchases of city assets.

On the reassessment front, um obviously we've been making iterative incremental progress, I would say, toward a citywide um revaluation, which hasn't been done in full since the mid-90s.

Um we have through various special reassessment projects.

Um made well over 40,000 changes uh over the last few years.

Um unfortunately given the the dip in the equalization rate reflecting appreciation of of real estate.

Iterate not really seen historically for a generation or more.

Um those assessments tend to fall more and more out of line with full market values.

Um thus the more we do, the more that exacerbates the need for a reval.

If we want to jump right into the proposed budget for uh fiscal year 27, that that does include um an expanded professional services line, that would finally give us um the seed money we need, as it were, to get that process underway to to pick up that process where it was left off last year.

Um get into the procurement process sooner than later and really make tracks toward that.

Um seated seated to my left, of course, is our recently retired first uh first deputy commissioner Ann Gallagher, who would put on a slightly different hat as a retiree part-time um project managing that for us.

And Matt, if I remember correctly, there were funds for the reval in the fiscal year twenty-five budget.

Correct.

Million?

Million dollars, yes.

There was a million proposed last year proposed million last year.

And we only have 500,000 in the budget for the current year.

That's well for that is clear 27.

That is our proposal, yes.

Um how you know how does that work that we're jumping from a million down to 500,000?

Well it's a heck of a lot more than zero.

Um, you know, we're we we are um a little short staffed at the moment for a number of reasons, um, but but we are coming with a roster that we think is is really well tailored toward um supporting that push toward a reval and building internal capacity to maintain a good role after a reval, which is likely to be a 30 plus month process.

So um given that this occurs over several fiscal years, um we don't need all that budgeted money in one shot.

Um so we think that um, you know, should we be able to re-enter the procurement process, find an appropriate vendor with whom to work, get that contract through common council, which um obviously didn't happen last year, um, and and that's all kosher as far as everybody's concerned.

We'd be very well positioned to begin the communications and the data collection process, um, then sitting before you um 52 weeks from now, probably asking for an expansion of that as we proceed uh into into the modeling process of the reval.

So 30 months, sorry Corey, so 30 months out from the time when you start RFP for a vendor or 30 months from the time that we were to approve the money.

Like where does that 30 month timeline kind of start?

Commencement of the contract, which you know, I I can't presume to know how long it's gonna take to negotiate this project uh contract, but um I think procurement getting through council can be a fairly quick process.

They took a long time last year drafting uh a 138-page RFP um and vetting um respondents was time consuming, but now we've done that.

So I think um we know what we're facing, we can do that pretty expeditiously, and then we would turn around, execute a contract, and 30 months would begin at at the same time we've retained that that consultants.

Farther back than that, I think.

Um, there's there's a heck of a lot of conditionals on that.

But but say we in Q3 really get through procurement, aspirationally get through common counsel, get you all to authorize a contract with the vendor, identify RFP committee, identify and and get into a contract with a vendor, begin work in earnest, hopefully on the back end of our assessment work this year, maybe early next.

That would take us through 27 through 28, midway into calendar year 29.

Um city school bills would come out January uh July of 29, based on that year's role, taxable status date of January 1st uh 29.

Taxpayers would not be seeing anything different on their bills as a result of the fruit of the reval until that would be July 30 for city school bills, January 31 for county bills.

Um goes as planned perfectly in a perfect world.

If all goes as planned, best laid plans of mice and men.

And if you can correct that math, please do.

She's nodding along as you're talking, so the staggered tax seasons uh and and uh obviously speaking on those finance matters sometimes gets us tripped up, but no, that that that feels like the right calendar.

So essentially the $500 appropriation of the current year is the commitment to what roughly three million dollars over that term.

Talking just in money out the door professional services contracts.

Correct.

I would hope it's a lot closer to two.

Um, not counting um resultant litigation, you know, uh Buffalo after its second reval in six years, uh I I think is looking at something like a thousand tax certs.

We've got 94 tax cerfs right now um on the back of the work we're doing.

I think we could uh see that increase by quite a lot.

Um and obviously then need need the support of um Office of Corporation Council and our outside council to see those through.

Anyway, yeah.

Um not to go down a rabbit hole.

Uh I do I do want to look out for indirect costs.

But yeah, two million dollars to consultants, I think would get the job done.

Thank you.

Commissioner, there's uh under the salary, the difference between the actual of 2025 and the proposed 2027.

Uh my math is correct, is 46,000.

Is that just the cost of living or is that what's the what's the difference?

Uh on the personal services line, counselor?

On on uh from a phone.

Looking at page uh 100.

100, yep.

Uh under the salaries.

Yep.

Right.

Uh the first line there is um actual of 2025 was uh 6899,000.

And then the proposed is 736,000.

Is that what's the discrepancy?

Because that's a 46,000 dollar difference.

Oh, that 35 35,000 on the other.

Yeah, temporary services just reflects the fact that and retired, so her um salary comes off the the full-time um category there.

Okay.

And you also have to.

But but we also have, yeah, I mean, we we really have have um reshuffled over the past two fiscal years in terms of um in terms of the roster.

Um, you know, FY25 into 26, really retailering with the expectation we'd be doing a reval with a certain staff building toward that, having sort of taken this inflection point to to really re-address our strengths and weaknesses um and account for Anne's retirement in the last year, and then coming back with sort of new uh say assessment 3.0, how we want to be staffed to get the best out of this reval and make sure that the next commissioner, the next um staff 10 years from now is maintaining a clean role and and wholly adopted best practices, all the while preparing for new state software and and whatever else comes with that.

Do you have any vacancies right now?

We do.

We um uh on FY26 or uh proposed FY27.

Uh uh either way, yes.

Um we we uh requested last year one real property appraiser to replace a senior appraiser who retired in June of 24.

Um that has yet to be filled.

Um job description I think is still rattling around with the county, but we anticipate posting that soon.

We're adding a second one of those um to account for increased workload with Anne's departure.

Um for at least nine years has handled the second and and sixteenth wards for valuation work.

Now now she won't be, and and the staff really can't afford to be spread any thinner than they are.

Um so we we need to backfill those soon.

So just to be clear, uh just for clarity purposes.

So the $35,000 on page 99 under temporary service is is the same on page 100, right?

Under the salary, is that the same thing?

If you go to page 99 under temporary service, the first commissioner that's the same.

Oh, yeah, that's the same thirty-five thousand dollars.

Okay, that's right.

Okay.

Um so you I think you said earlier that is uh through the um is it the that the team has a made assessment of sixty, eight hundred properties.

Um I could probably pull that up.

But it does report.

But yeah, I think it was about sixty, seven hundred eighty or something like that last year.

Okay.

So how many how many staff did that take to do?

That was that was full-time uh two senior appraisers.

We we got a heck of a lot more help last year from a real property appraiser aide um getting out into the field and uh going through physical changes.

Um and then obviously um Michael Michael has three wards.

Um his time was really split a little more heavily than we'd like last year on on among other things the 1153 West Fayette um upcoming move.

Um so his bandwidth was limited in terms of valuation work, and then Anne has um has had the two two wards, 16 and 2.

And um I have six wards.

I admittedly did not do as much reassessment work this past year as I have done in the past.

Again, uh attentions divided on some uh administrative and asset management matters.

So reliably is two.

So that is to say, two full-time dedicated staff, one assistant, and then three people in leadership picking up a bit of valuation work.

So with this five hundred thousand dollars that you are proposing, what how many do you plan to get out of it?

So so none that would that would all go to an outside contractor.

Okay.

That would be wholly devoted to that.

So our staff would continue.

That's a good question.

Our staff would continue uh to do their work um at the current pace, I think.

We would still um have a centralized point of intake for for permits.

Tom and Joe and Caitlin would still be out in the field, um, you know, seeing if a uh a house has been demolished.

Uh uh we would be doing the assessment and exemption administration end of the job just as normal, probably running our assessment role um off of a duplicate role so that that there could be a mirror role that's maintained by the consultant getting into the data collection and the modeling, such that if something were to go wrong with the consultant, we'd still have a true assessment role um at the end of every year.

Um with no you know redundancy against the possibility of errors being made.

So you haven't figured out yet how how many will you require from the consultant out of this 500,000.

How the consultant would staff it or how full-time staffing would change.

How many properties are we looking out of that?

Oh no, that they would they would be assessing our uh 41,000.

Oh the entire okay, what whatever whatever the entirety of the city whatever the the um the the two staff and the not only be um making sure that our inventory on on all of the properties we're assessing is true and re-evaluating those because remember we're doing our best to evaluate these properties in the context of the universe of city properties, um to the extent that the sand is shifting under our feet as it were, while the consultant is revaluing the whole city contextually the value of those properties in terms of assessed value is gonna change a little bit.

So yeah, they would be reassessing those properties too as we're gonna be able to do that.

Reassessing them, okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Commissioner, I'm looking at the uh position details.

So we're eliminated the information aid.

And the real property assessment clerk.

So who is going to pick that up?

So I'll say the quiet part out loud there.

We we have a real property assessment clerk right now who's fabulous, um, who intends to take civil service exam for the control clerk and would be promoted into a second control clerk position.

Um duties would expand a little bit, human being and and the the workstation and all those things would stay the same.

Um but but we would not be backfilling that assessment versus you don't need an information aid, other pit bulls.

Information aid was included um in the early stages of reval planning last time.

J just a thought that that a good entry-level employee who can field um constituents at the counter, answer phones, um generally just be a helper around the office would be a very good thing.

Um Franklin, I don't think we live in in a financial world in which that's um a need rather than a want right now.

So you do see the need for real property appraiser that we need to do.

Yes, yeah.

We we've got 19 wards um and all that go with that, and we really need dedicated staff.

So are you backlog and uh assessing people's properties?

I mean, inherently yes.

Um what we do is is reactive, right, to market conditions.

How um how behind are you?

Let's see, in years you may be behind.

Well like 31 since the last tree fell.

Okay, I mean that sound flipped, but but no, I mean, honestly, we've we've had historic output in the last five years.

Um we we've gone from assessing 1500, 2500 properties a year to assessing more than 6500 each of the last four years.

Um that just has unfortunately dovetailed with um a preposterous residential real estate market.

Um Michael, shifting over to your part of the department.

I looked about 12 different times, looking for the revenue for property sales.

Um what happens last year compared to what we expected?

I know that in last year's budget the STC money was not in the budget.

Um, where did we fall in terms of money that we that we collected um kind of on the expenditure side and where is that proposed to be in the coming year?

Um then I know that we had the project over on Fayette.

Just fall through um what's happening with you know the dispossession of assets.

Um well in the positive column.

Um last year we sold uh 234 Marguerite.

Um the parcels on Seymour and Onondaga Streets, the rescue mission.

Um and 300 East Genesee Street across the street.

Those all closed.

Uh there are their pending transactions that haven't closed yet.

But so that revenue accounts for 547,000 last year.

Um but you mentioned uh STC, right?

The Wilbur parcels haven't transacted yet.

Um couple other transactions are still in uh financing flux, I'll call it uh between the the other party.

Um those numbers are true for what we did do last year.

Um and there are their others pending right now.

We also have two published RFPs right now for city property for potential disposition development.

And Commissioner, you were grabbing your own.

And yeah, uh SDC um did close this fiscal year, uh phase one, that is.

Um we're we're retaining the remainder of the site, obviously, um with a real holistic development plan for the site.

Um I I I realize there was some I don't know, in inconsistency, I think with the with the anticipated revenue last year in the budget surrounding SDC.

But yeah, that that has closed city has been paid.

Um and so that's um if it doesn't close in the in the budget year, the seat rolled over.

I mean, where do you accrue the revenue?

We'd we'd ultimately go hat in hand back to budget in the in the first quarter and say, yeah, that one didn't close on time.

Um let's account for that next year, and then ultimately, hopefully it does.

And and generally it does.

You know, real estate deals fall through as a 1039 east day at yesterday, um, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Um mutual parting of the ways on a project that isn't gonna work is is okay for both sides.

Um we still retain the asset.

We hopefully don't retain too much carrying cost to go with that, and we'd account for it in a future year's budget if we continue uh marketing it.

So let's talk about the city hall comes.

I was just gonna ask Michael.

Not good enough.

Yeah.

Um we awarded um, you know, uh duly uh engaged council and uh got a local law to sell, uh, I believe uh three and a half years ago after a competitive RFP process.

Um selected a developer with with the assistance of common counselors on the RFP committee who um you know maybe had a bit of an aspirational plan, but really wholly aligned with um both the administration and and the council's um policy uh preferences.

It it has taken a while.

And again, um we and they have have faced some remarkable headwinds in terms of the macroeconomic situation in this country, especially as it relates to construction and real estate development.

Um they they are engaged with all the right um government entities, I think, and are making a very earnest effort to get financing together and close on the project before November 11th.

Um their due diligence does expire on November 11th, and uh neither side intends to prolong this relationship beyond that if we don't close.

If we get close, do we proactively or preemptively prepare a new RFP to get put out on November 12th?

Or what you know, what's the vision if that doesn't happen?

Is it you know city redevelopment?

Are we looking at for somebody external again?

What do you anticipate?

Um the physical plant remains as troubled as it did when we made the pretty easy decision to dispose in the first place.

You know, masonry is not in great shape, the the windows are in poor shape, the floors on the upper floors are crooked, floor plates are small.

Um no, I don't think the city um has an operational need or has any long-term desire to retain the asset.

So we'd be um certainly speaking internally and working with council on developing the best path forward to get a vibrant productive use on that block.

No, I I think about the phrase you mentioned operational need, and you know, one of the most staggering numbers in the budget book is the jump in our operating leases from fiscal year 25 to the proposed budget.

We went from less than 800,000 up to 3.4 million dollars.

That's the 2.6 million dollar jump over a two-year period that we're presumably indefinitely sustaining.

Um, we talk about operational need.

And we talk about the finances behind that.

Um, in in indefinitely, I think it's plainly unsustainable.

Um in the short term, I think a number of these, um, both in context um and in a vacuum were the right choices at the right time.

Um surprising as some of the numbers are.

Um, you know, one of the contributors to that number increasing, of course, is uh commensurate reduction in the county abstract um with fire and and police moving out of the public safety building rather than spending um a million seven on a on a deficient property and home for our employees.

We're gonna spend about a million seven in year one on a on a sparkling new uh naturally lighted, well-located appropriate home for for our colleagues and employees.

Um in 20 years are we're gonna be saying we made good choices here.

I hope we're living in a more vibrant city that doesn't have a structural deficit.

We can say that thing.

Um in the short term, we're always looking to bring the most value that we can out of these leases.

Uh one park place is gonna come to an end sooner than 1153.

I I know we'll be diligent in in re-evaluating what that means.

Um in the short term, we've helped stabilize um an important downtown privately held asset um and put 130, 150 city employees a block from city hall nearby existing transportation um infrastructure and giving them class A office space in which to work.

I think that's a win.

It's a win that is a dollar cost attached.

Where are we on Garzone, Mike?

The Garzone's space.

Thank you, Counselor.

Uh that RFP was advertised last week.

I haven't heard any questions yet, um, but I'm looking forward to having conversations with any developers and um reviewing any proposals that we get to uh digest in May Gentleman.

All right well Commissioner Monto decided that he was done with the hearing um so we might want to follow his lead.

Um thank you gentlemen we are going to finish off a couple minutes early and I get a motion to each