Victor Hambrick sits down for an interview.

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Answering Those Taxing Questions

The interview with Victor Hambrick , Yavapai County Assessor, started with an email received by Prescott eNews from a reader. The email read in part, "While doing research for vacant land I have found a property owner that is paying taxes on a vacant lot that [is not a vacant piece of land]. I'm sure he [the owner] is aware of the mistake and is just letting it slide until it is noticed. (to me, that is fraud - he knows it is wrong, he gets the notice every year). My question is why is it happening and how many others aren't being appraised correctly. In times when every tax dollar counts how can this occur? When I pulled a building permit on a vacant lot five years ago, I was assessed before I got a CofO [Certificate of Occupancy]. How many other properties out there are in the same situation?"

Hambrick smiled. "This is a great question... This question talks about escaped improved property on the tax roll, which means that somebody has had a piece of vacant land, and then they improved it with a building, whether it's a residential, commercial or even a storage type building. When I say storage, I'm not talking commercial type storage, even a personal type storage. Why isn't it on the tax roll, and why did it escape, and those type of things, and how many of them are there in the county?"

"Well, first the county entails about 160,000 parcels," Hambrick explained. "On that total of 160,000, there's about 90,000 improved parcels. And keep in mind, that's 8100 square miles of area. Yavapai is pretty big. In the Assessor's office, it's our job to track it, it's our job to locate it, it's our job to identify it, and it's our job to put it on the tax roll. Within that 160,000 parcels and 8100 square miles, there are lots of incorporated areas, which are municipalities. The town of Dewey-Humboldt is the newest one. And you have Prescott Valley, Prescott, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Sedona, Chino Valley - lots of areas. So, to walk through a step-by-step process, if you were to live in the town of Prescott Valley, you would have to go to the town of Prescott Valley to get a building permit. You wouldn't come to Yavapai County. If you were to live in Prescott, you would go to Prescott to get a building permit... If you lived in rural Yavapai County, you would then come to Yavapai County to get a building permit. And I would know about it."

Hambrick continued, "Now then, because we have these incorporated areas, it's the incorporated areas' responsibility to collect their permits, but then we have to get all those permits to the Yavapai County Assessor. Because in the State of Arizona, the municipalities don't do the valuation for their area, it is still done by the Yavapai County Assessor's office. So, they provide us their permits, so we go out and pick up those improvements on the tax roll, because we get clued that there's a permit been issued."

Returning back to the question at hand, Hambrick pulled out a GIS satellite image, showing the property. "So, in this case, we did not receive a building permit. And there is an improvement on this parcel that is mentioned in this email, and it is not on the tax roll. I did some research on it because of this email, and looked up to see when that permit was pulled. And I had to call the City of Prescott Valley to do that, because I didn't have it. There was a permit issued back in July of '03. But, the permit was not finalized, which means the building wasn't completed, when they received their final certificate of completion, until August of '07."

"Now, then if we would have had a permit, this building would have hit the tax roll in '07," Hambrick said. "Because it's in August and that's before we do the notice of change. Since we've been notified... this will be on the 2009 Notice of Change, which is for this year."

But, what would have happened if we hadn't forwarded this email to Hambrick? How would they have found out about the change? Hambrick responded, "The question is, how do we track these things all the time? We track them a lot of different ways. We have the Yavapai County Assessor's email address, which we have an email address to the office, and we get lots of taxpayers that email questions to us all the time, "Hey, I was on the GIS, and there's a building there, and it's not on the tax rolls. Sometimes, there's just a confusion about tax years, because, even though we're working in 2008, my office's current year is 2010... So, anything after about the middle of August, goes on for 2010, not for 2009. So, we get a lot of questions like this all the time."

"The other way that we track it is that we try to cross-reference with our satellite inventory," Hambrick said. "Where we've got improved parcels vs. vacant parcels on the actual tax roll. That system's not perfect, because we don't have good inventory, or good photos for the entire county, and so, most of the time, where escaped properties are is in the rural Yavapai County, vs. inside the incorporated area. The other way we track it, is our appraisers are assigned to their own areas, so while they're out there picking up other permits, if they see a new construction job going on, a lot of times they'll look and say, 'Well, how come I don't have a permit for this one?'"

The paperwork generated is enormous. The county has looked at new software to help in interagency reporting, but currently everything is still done in paper format when it comes to permits, because it's hard to get eight incorporated areas to use the exact same software and at the same time. Information can be still be sent or received in a digital file, such as an Excel spreadsheet, and they do the best they can electronically.

In the meantime, Hambrick is hoping to get a new computerized appraisal and assessment system installed, which will help the crossreferencing with the improved GIS parcels because they'll be able to see the buildings on there. But for now, the county is still using a DOS mainframe computer system for these records!

Other Duties of the Assessor's Office

The Yavapai County Assessor does more than send out tax bills. Just to demonstrate, Hambrick brought a gift to the interview - an Annual Calendar of Legal Events and Assessments, 30 pages long. "This calendar relates to nothing but the deadlines that I have to meet on a daily basis, month by month," he explained.

Hambrick obviously enjoys his job, and he talked about some of the interesting stories he gets in the assessor's office.

For example, about a year ago, he got a call from a county resident, stating that their property had been devalued because somebody had buried a dead body across the street.

What's an Assessor to do in those circumstances? Hambrick called the Sheriff, and the Sheriff's office did an investigation, using the Assessor's satellite imagery, to see the fresh dirt pile. "This illustrates the principle," Hambrick said, "That everybody has their own opinion of what affects or doesn't affect their property."

A satellite shot of the Courthouse Square in downtown Prescott.

Hambrick explained that along with all those parcels, there are approximately 110 taxing authorities in Yavapai County. And a taxing authority also has boundaries, and that boundary has to be drawn with the lots that encompass that. Inside that boundary, there needs to be state approval to have the right to levy the taxes - perhaps for a special district. But, some parcels might be exempt from special district taxes, so that can complicate things.

Is your head spinning yet? That's the sort of thing that the Assessor's office figures out every day, all day long, even while meeting 30 pages of deadlines.

The town of Dewey-Humboldt was the last newly incorporated area within Yavapai County. Hambrick spoke of the consequences of that incorporation, "When they incorporated, they drew their boundary of what property they wanted in there, and, for example, they split about 75 parcels through that process. Which means now that you have property owners that half of their property lies within rural Yavapai County, and the other half lies within the incorporated area of the town of Dewey-Humboldt." Many owners are now getting two tax bills, and own two parcels of land."

"When you're doing mass appraisal, let's say it was a five acre parcel, that went to a 2 1/2 acre parcel. Well, with that being the case, maybe the price per acre in that area according to the market changes at about 3 acres. So, now it increased that value for the 2 1/2 acre parcel, that's higher as two 2 1/2 acres than one whole 5.And that's not necessarily fair. So, people come in and I have to look at it and say, 'Ok, they didn't split it, they didn't create it, they didn't create it that way to sell it, we need to treat it as a contiguous parcel, or treat the value as a contiguous parcel and then have to identify it in the system to continue on doing that in the future, just because it was a government action that caused that split, not the people."

Hambrick worked with the Arizona Association of Counties and Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA) in trying to get a bill out that wouldn't allow you to split parcels by incorporating a town or just a special tax district or anything. We weren't completely successful, we got part of it passed and part of it didn't. But, the simple reason for it was just to try to prevent that kind of confusion."

"There's a lot of things that we do that go far beyond just valuing," Hambrick said. "And you get into very technical details that become complex. Why does it happen, and how does it happen and what can we do to make it better?"

Using the GIS Satellite system on the county website, what can you find out? Hambrick listed some of the items:

• Square footage of their house
• The year that their house was built, (unless it's been remodelled, at which point you'd see the effective age.)
• A satellite imagery of the property and the boundary of their lot
• Current year's full cash value
• Last year's full cash value
• The assessed values
• The previous year's taxes that were paid
• If there's any recent sales information
• Comparables

The Yavapai County current imagery is down to about 1 meter in the incorporated areas. However, not all of rural Yavapai County is that detailed.

"When we do an effective age, add-ons are a great example. Then you have a new construction year for a portion of the house, and an older construction year for the portion of the house, and it's going to affect the entire effective age of that entire house, because it's going to be a mixture of the two."

For example, the Prescott Air Park had parcels where the tax authority boundary had an incorrect legal description since the 1960's. In researching it to try to help solve their problem; it was discovered that when the legal description was recorded in the 1950's, the original boundary was wrong anyway.

It's the details like that which take a long time to learn and bring that knowledge to the forefront that makes the Assessor's office work. "When it comes to the real interesting, complex problems, they're the ones that fall on my lap."

In discussing the technicalities of the Assessor's Office, Hambrick noted, "There's a lot of legalities to it, it's complex and it's not something I learned overnight, it's something I learned by experience. You come across things every day where something pops up new, but it takes a broad base of experience to know how to come to that solution for that."

On the Road To the Assessor's Office...

Hambrick lists a GED on his website as one of his accomplishments. Some people might be embarrassed that they didn't finish high school. For Hambrick, it is what it is. "I have been on my own since I was 16 years old. When I say on my own, I had to put a roof over my own head from the time I was 16. So, I had to make a choice in life that I could either step up to the plate and finish out high school and work and put food in my mouth, and a roof over my head. Or, I could not finish out high school and do nothing at all, and blame it on somebody else. Or I could go take the GED test and work also, and go make something of myself. To me it was a simple choice of, 'you have a choice to blame everything that don't work out for you on somebody, or you can take your own responsibility.' We live in a free country, and I'm grateful that we live in a free country, and my choice was to make something of myself. So I took the GED test and went on with my life."

What then? Hambrick said he worked in the oil fields in Taft, California. Well, actually, he lived in Wasco, right outside of Bakersfield. He also worked as a welder and on farms and ranches. "When they drilled an oil well, I would be the guy that comes in afterwards and sets the well head and get everything ready for the pumps to go on."

Hambrick also rode horses his whole life, and even knows how to shoe them. He did lots of odd jobs like that. And then he got into real estate.

"Most of my life has been made out of hard work. I worked one job or two jobs or whatever it takes to get ahead in life, and make something out of myself." Hambrick said. "I think there's a lot of people in America, who don't realize how great this country is because it's a free country. And if I had to start where I started from in a third world country, or a country that wasn't a free country, and I didn't have the same equal opportunity that everybody else did - but there's a lot of people that don't think they have the equal opportunity, but that's because they don't take advantage or take the choice. They don't make the choice to make the difference. I can remember when I was 16 it was clear as day that I had a choice to do good or bad. It was my choice as to whether I wanted to work hard or not work hard. That's where I came from."

"I'm not your typical politician, either," said Hambrick with a little laugh. "I've made Prescott, Yavapai County, my home. I got married living here, I've raised my daughter here 6, turning 7 next month. I've built my life here. It's been interesting, it's been a challenge and it's been fun."

Victor's website: http://www.victorhambrick.com/  

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written by David P, August 08, 2008

Sounds like a very complicated job. I'm not knocking him, but Id like to know why this is an elected position? It seems like it is mainly about following procedures and laws. In other words, it is implementing policy, not making policy. Again, not criticizing, I'd just like to know why it is elected and not appointed.

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Why Is It An Elected Position?
written by Lynne LaMaster, August 08, 2008

Usually, I don't respond to comments left on stories. But, I have the answer to your question here, because I also asked if he thought it was appropriate for this to be an elected position. And Hambrick replied, "I think it's appropriate for the Assessor to be an elected position. And that is understanding why it's elected. And the reason it is elected, is because you do not want, for example if you have a taxing authority, such as the Board of Supervisors being able to give direction to the Yavapai County Assessor to set values at a certain level because they need more money. And, so that's why it is elected, it's powers that balance each other out. It's part of what makes a democracy."

Hambrick went on to say that in his opinion, "I think there should probably be some qualifications that are tied to be able to run to be assessor, that you would tie to any job of something that is as detailed and statute driven as this, to have an understanding of how it works. In other states, they appoint the assessor. I think that's ok, also, except I really think that brings it down to a good ol' boy system, and who knows who. I think it's great that it's elected, I think the dynamics have changed since we became a state in 1912, and we should probably attach some qualifications to it. But, then once again, if you do something like that, you're changing the [state] Constitution, and I'm not big on Constitutional amendments."

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written by Lorraine, August 09, 2008

Go to Victors website, and try and verify his qualifacations...

Editor's note: The rest of this comment has been removed because it appears to make accusations that are unsubstantiated. However, it did raise an issue regarding Hambrick's certifications, which is addressed in the article, Hambrick Talks About Qualifications and Credentials.

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written by Ted, August 09, 2008

I went to his website and...

Editor's note: This comment has been removed because it appears to make accusations that are unsubstantiated. However, it did raise an issue regarding Hambrick's certifications, which is addressed in the article, Hambrick Talks About Qualifications and Credentials.

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You are not making sense
written by Jannie, August 10, 2008

Ted & Lorraine- All candidate's websites only list qualifications. No site supplies all the certificates. No one can verify credentials by looking at a candidate's website.

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written by Ted, August 10, 2008

Dear Jannie,
What I did was I went to his web site then tried to verify each thing that he listed. [edited]

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Think before you write
written by Jannie, August 11, 2008

You didn't try very hard. They are all listed with the link to the documents. I think you just do not understand how the certification process works. I recommend you learn before making unsubstantiated accusations.

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Thinking
written by Ted, August 11, 2008

Dear Jannie,

Here is what Mr. Hambrick list on his web site under education & certifications

GED – there is no link – he was born in Casa Grande, AZ (Per Daily Courier; 08/06/2008 “Assessor incumbent, bio: Hambrick”). I have repeatedly asked Mr. Hambrick and Kathy Lopez (his campaign manager) for information on where Mr. Hambrick obtained his GED and have been ignored. I called the Department of Education in Arizona and they are unable to verify that Victor Hambrick obtained a GED in the state of Arizona.

Second Mr. Hambrick list Ad-valorem appraiser for Arizona – there is no link; there is nothing to verify as this does not appear to be education or a certification.

Third he list University of Arizona Southwest Leadership Program, certificate in public policy and management – there is no link; I called the University of Arizona and they don't have an accredited course with this title. Thus I am unable to verify this. It appears that he may have taken a seminar located on the Universities campus but it is doubtful that he has a “certificate in public policy” and more likely that he has a document acknowledging a course that he took in public policy. (The university told me that when they give you a certificate in something it is similar to a degree in it).

He list International Association of Assessing Officers, Certification in Assessment Administration”; I called International Association of Assessing Officers at 816 701-8100 – they state that they do not have a professional designation titled “Certification in Assessment Administration” They have professional designations titled “Assessment Administration Specialists” and Certified Assessment Evaluator” and Mr. Hambrick does not have either of these professional designations from them. They do have a course called Assessment Administration which is one course on the path to a certification and he may have taken and passed this one class but he is not “certified” in Assessment Administration through them.

Next he list Covey Leadership Center, Principled Centered Leadership, completed all 8 courses – there is no link. There is not enough information for me to verify this one way or the other.

Next he list Arizona Department of Revenue Certifications: Hearing Procedures, Complex Commercial Valuation, Residential and Simple Commercial Valuation, Personal Property Valuation, Land Valuation – the documentation of the “satisfactory completion of the training courses” are listed on Prescottenews web site 08/10/2008 “Hambrick Talks About Qualifications and Credentials” these are “ not “certifications” as Mr. Hambrick claims they are (in appraising certifications and designations mean more than taking a class – it means that a Professional Board has provided courses, tested, recognized and endorsed your abilities in these fields). The posted documents prove he is not “certified” in these areas but merely has taken some classes in these areas.

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thinking more
written by Ted, August 11, 2008

Next Yavapai County, Effective Performance Appraisals, completed training. There is no link and not enough information for me to verify. I am uncertain if Mr. Hambrick is claiming that Yavapai County has provided classes and given training or if a professional organization has come to Yavapai county and given training – if a professional organization which one?

Next: URISA, Integrating Geographic Information Systems with Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal – there is no link and not enough information for me to verify. I checked with URISA's web site and they appear to offer workshops on GIS so it appears Mr. Hambrick took a workshop on GIS.

ESRI, completion of Introduction to ARC Info – there is no link and not enough information for me to verify. I checked with ESRI's website and they offer training programs for the products that they sell.

Arizona Department of Revenue, Level 2 Certified Appraiser; I was able to verify this as this certificate is posted on Prescottenews web site 08/10/2008 “Hambrick Talks About Qualifications and Credentials” This demonstrates that Mr. Hambrick does indeed have this.

Arizona Board of Appraisal, Licensed Real Estate Appraiser – Per the Arizona Board of Appraisals Mr. Hambrick is not a licensed appraiser. Per Prescottenews web site 08/10/2008 “Hambrick Talks About Qualifications and Credentials” his license is posted and indicates that it expired in 1995. Therefore Mr. Hambrick is not a “Licensed Real Estate Appraiser” as he claims to be.

FAA licensed pilot for single, multi-engine, private/instrument aircraft; I was able to verify this through the FAA Airman Directory.

In Summary: Mr. Hambrick is
1.Not a licensed Appraiser through the AZ Board of Appraisals
2.Not Certified in Assessment Administration with IAAO
3.Does not have certifications in: Hearing Procedures, Complex Commercial Valuation, Residential and Simple Commercial Valuation, Personal Property Valuation, Land Valuation
4.Does not have a certificate in Public Policy through the University of Arizona, Southwest
5.Does not have a GED in Arizona

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