Interim Suffolk assessor expects most valuations to hold

SUFFOLK

Shortly after the City Council voted him into his new role Monday, interim Assessor Sid Daughtrey injected a bit of levity into the ongoing firestorm over assessments.

With the special meeting done and council members dispersed, Daughtrey, a city employee for nearly 24 years, was asked if he planned to apply for the permanent appointment.

"Nooo," he replied immediately. "I've got too long to retirement."

He has the job for the time being, anyway. Last week, the council voted 7-0 to fire Maria Kattmann, Daughtrey's boss for more than 12 years. The action followed weeks of complaints from residents and scrutiny from council members over Kattmann's preliminary assessments this year.

The Board of Equalization, which hears formal appeals from homeowners, has so many cases that it requested more time for hearings. The council responded Monday by extending the deadline for applying from May 1 to June 1. It also gave the board until June 30, rather than May 31, to hear all the cases.

Daughtrey estimated that 380 to 400 people have appealed this year to the board. Some of the complaints will be settled before they reach a formal hearing.

"It's probably the busiest, I'd say, we've seen in 10 to 12 years," Daughtrey said.

Much of the discontent has arisen from skyrocketing assessments on some waterfront properties. Before she was fired, Kattmann told the council that she focused on those properties because their assessments had fallen far behind their real value.

Despite the complaints, Daughtrey said he expects that once the Board of Equalization reviews all of the cases, "we'll find that our methodology was good the vast majority of the time."

He told the council that some neighborhoods and subdivisions might see uniform changes in assessments if the board rules on a case that affects similar properties, even if the others didn't appeal.

Councilman Charles Parr expressed surprise when Daughtrey told him the assessor's office did not have a comprehensive system for tracking residents' calls.

"There wasn't a very organized one," Daughtrey said. "It was more or less up to each appraiser."

Parr was concerned that some people might not have heard back in time to make a formal complaint to the board. "That tells me something's broken," he said. "That's a management problem, I would think."

Daughtrey spoke highly of Kattmann after the council meeting. He said she was the fourth assessor he had worked under in Suffolk.

"And she was head and shoulders above the rest of them," he said. "I'm not, certainly by no means, excited to see her go."

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com