Really there are ~~two~~ three things that went wrong:
1) Jackson County fell way behind on doing a revaluation. Most places in the USA do a revaluation every 4-6 years, resetting all assessments to market value. When Jackson County finally tried doing one, they didn't budget enough to do it. They needed dozens of contractors and a $10 million budget to do it properly.
2) Tyler's software is crap. Jackson County didn't do enough due diligence when they acquired it. That would have informed county officials how broken Tyler's assessment software actually is. For example, applying a simple 10% fudge factor to all parcels in a zipcode should take seconds for a computer to recalculate. In Tyler's software, that operation can literally take longer than a day to compute. When your software is so broken, that will hamper the revaluation Jackson County was trying to do.
3) Jackson County's revaluation was not done transparently. The Assessors did the normal government thing, which is keep everything secret until the official proposed assessments and tax amounts were mailed out, leaving a short statutory window when property owners could file appeals. If the assessors instead kept the process open, making the property values public while they reviewed and updated them, inviting the public to send informal feedback, then that would have made the entire process more palatable, more efficient, and also more accurate.
Relying on the formal-appeal process also created a double whammy. Imagine a street with 10 houses. Five houses face a pond, while five houses face the highway. If the assessor unwittingly assigned them all the same value, then the five facing the highway will appeal the overvaluation. The five facing the pond will happily accept the undervaluation. The county is left shortchanged. An informal feedback process would fix those imbalances before they become a headache.
Part of the problem seems to be that certain corporations are really good at bidding on government contracts while good tech companies are busy and don't seek out that work.
When the City is required to open a contract up for public bid, sometimes the consequences are unintended.
> Jackson County didn't do enough due diligence when they acquired it.
I assumed it was a buddy-buddy backroom deal and that there was no due diligence.
Oh wow, really? /s
I'm shocked I tell you! Shocked!
Well not that shocked
Really there are ~~two~~ three things that went wrong: 1) Jackson County fell way behind on doing a revaluation. Most places in the USA do a revaluation every 4-6 years, resetting all assessments to market value. When Jackson County finally tried doing one, they didn't budget enough to do it. They needed dozens of contractors and a $10 million budget to do it properly. 2) Tyler's software is crap. Jackson County didn't do enough due diligence when they acquired it. That would have informed county officials how broken Tyler's assessment software actually is. For example, applying a simple 10% fudge factor to all parcels in a zipcode should take seconds for a computer to recalculate. In Tyler's software, that operation can literally take longer than a day to compute. When your software is so broken, that will hamper the revaluation Jackson County was trying to do. 3) Jackson County's revaluation was not done transparently. The Assessors did the normal government thing, which is keep everything secret until the official proposed assessments and tax amounts were mailed out, leaving a short statutory window when property owners could file appeals. If the assessors instead kept the process open, making the property values public while they reviewed and updated them, inviting the public to send informal feedback, then that would have made the entire process more palatable, more efficient, and also more accurate. Relying on the formal-appeal process also created a double whammy. Imagine a street with 10 houses. Five houses face a pond, while five houses face the highway. If the assessor unwittingly assigned them all the same value, then the five facing the highway will appeal the overvaluation. The five facing the pond will happily accept the undervaluation. The county is left shortchanged. An informal feedback process would fix those imbalances before they become a headache.
Part of the problem seems to be that certain corporations are really good at bidding on government contracts while good tech companies are busy and don't seek out that work. When the City is required to open a contract up for public bid, sometimes the consequences are unintended.
> Jackson County didn't do enough due diligence when they acquired it. I assumed it was a buddy-buddy backroom deal and that there was no due diligence.
Was with the largest mass-appraisal company in the country and voted on by the legislature.
Takes a highly skilled programmer to turn a linear operation into something with exponential time complexity. That’s incredible to hear.
Shocked pica chu
Is that like pica de gallo?
Tyler technologies the same people who make every shitty government program such as law enforcement software called “New World”
They also do shitty school information system software.
A conflict of interest where a few got paid to screw over the masses? No way /s
So are they going to fix it? Or are we accepting they messed up, but won’t do anything about it?
Same people that helped fuck the housing market.
I hesitate to defend them, but you're more likely thinking of RealPage
Realtors have been driving up the market for decades to line their own pockets.
Ya don't say...
Alleged....shits true.
yeah we know the county tried to fuck us over so they could line their coffers