PROVEN AND VERIFIABLE RESULTS
In less than a year and a half as Fayette County Property Valuation Administrator, David has made great strides in modernizing the office, cutting costs, improving taxpayer services and assembling a highly educated and skilled staff.
Technology
Using existing resources and appropriations, David has dramatically improved the technological capabilities of the PVA office. GIS and aerial photography are now an integral part of the office’s mission of fair and equitable property assessments. Through replacements, upgrades and rotations, the entire office has improved desktop computing capabilities. The network infrastructure has been expanded with the implementation of a new server and the Internet pipeline has been upgraded from a 128K connection that was incapable of accommodating a staff of 26 to a full T1. These improvements have made the office more productive, efficient and responsive.
The PVA office is now compliant with generally accepted standards related to data security, backups and disaster recovery protocols.
Cost Cutting and Efficiency
Among David’s immediate priorities as PVA was the reduction of the office car pool by nearly half – from 11 cars to six. Reducing the automobile fleet not only saves taxpayers $5,000 per year in parking, fuel, insurance and other related expenses, but the revenue from the sale of the cars is being invested in state-of-the-art aerial photography technology capable of identifying new construction and changes to existing structures. The Fayette County PVA office will be the first use of this technology anywhere in Kentucky.
On November 25, David announced a voluntary 5.8% budget cut in operating funds appropriated by Lexington Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG). This is a direct savings to the taxpayers made possible by reduced automobile expenses, cancellation of previously outsourced accounting services, discontinued cellular and cable subscriptions, the elimination of unnecessary equipment maintenance contracts, reduced travel and more rigorous controls over office supplies and vendor services costs.
For fiscal year 2010/2011, David voluntarily submitted another 5.1% budget reduction. When taken together, the two voluntary cuts represent an 8% reduction in appropriations since assuming office in March 2009 and more than a 20% reduction from the final budget request presented by his predecessor.
Professionalism and Quality
The Fayette County PVA office has established a new standard for full transparency in government. Beginning with the current fiscal year (July 1, 2009), every expense and check written is now listed on the PVA web site.
David has led significant improvements in the PVA office’s relationships with other government agencies, including LFUCG, County Clerk, County Attorney, and Sheriff. The most significant example resulted from a major data quality initiative to correct the mailing addresses of property owners. Previously, errors in PVA data resulted in the delivery of thousands of property tax bills being significantly delayed or undeliverable entirely. These permanent improvements allow the Fayette County Sheriff’s office to reduce postage expenses and make better use of resources previously burdened with tasks associated with returned and undeliverable mail.
Taxpayer education is now a high priority and significant part of the day-to-day duties of the PVA office. David continues to work with the Lexington Bluegrass Area Realtors (LBAR) and the Homebuilders Association of Lexington (HBAL) to incorporate property taxes and PVA services into the continuing education curriculum required of their membership. David and his deputies have made presentations to dozens of professional and civic groups and neighborhood associations on the topics of trends in property values, taxpayer rights associated with challenging property assessments, applying for exemptions and accessing PVA data.
The Fayette County PVA office is administered by a highly skilled and educated staff. In addition to 12 deputies who collectively bring over 120 years of PVA experience, David has rounded out his staff with nine deputies who possess a minimum of a bachelors degree and an impressive amount of private sector experience, including: commercial lending, real estate, small business ownership, retail management, and service sector management.
Staff management policies are centered on sound business principles including a high level of cross training, structured evaluations, career path planning and continuing education and certification. The result is an office environment with positive morale, improved efficiency, higher rates of attendance and punctuality and measurable increases in productivity.
David has worked closely with local business and government leaders in the development and dissemination of quarterly statistics and economic indicators of real estate sales and valuation trends. David recognized immediately that the PVA office possessed previously untapped data that should be made available to civic and business leaders for economic development and growing the tax base.
