A press release from Grafton Township Assessor Al Zielinski:
Grafton Township Assessor Laments a Return to Acrimony.
Al Zielinski
HUNTLEY, IL (August 21, 2015) – “Maybe there’s something in the water preventing the township from working together in the interests of its residents.” mused Alan Zielinski, the Grafton Township Assessor.
Focus on Fair and Accurate Assessments
“Regardless of the obstacles placed before us by the Supervisor and Board of Trustees, our office performedadmirably. Our focus is replicating our exemplary performance in 2015 and beyond.” stated Zielinski.
In 2014, Grafton’s assessments generated the best equalizer in McHenry County. It was the only township in that county to meet or exceed the Department of Revenue’s specifications for assessment accuracy.
That year, Grafton assessed more than 15,000 of its almost 22,000 parcels with 36% receiving increases and 64% receiving decreases.
“It’s not as if we were bored looking for work.” quipped Zielinski.
“It’s a perfect example of the vast assessment disparity and inequity we inherited when I took office January 1, 2013.”
Balancing Personal Privacy and Office Transparency
Regarding claims his office violated the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Zielinski was straightforward.
“Our overarching policy is the Assessor’s Office is a distinct, elected office answering only to the voters of Grafton Township, not its Supervisor and/or Trustees.
“Our office always has been, is, and will remain, in absolute compliance with all applicable statutes.”
Citing numerous sections of the Illinois Property Tax Code and Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Assessor’s Office is convinced it is a distinct public body as defined by the FOIA. As such, Zielinski believes the office should have its own FOIA Officer.“
The public is best served by having an Assessor’s Office FOIA Officer who is available and qualified to address valuation requests on a daily basis, not the part-time alternative offered by the Supervisor and Board.”
From outward appearances, the Board’s selection for a township-wide FOIA Officer, the Township Clerk, spends less than one day per month in the office.
Nonetheless, the Board at its April, 2015 meeting decided to appoint an Assistant Clerk to assist her.
Zielinski believes the FOIA’s intent is balancing transparency while protecting personal privacy.
Zielinski cited the following from the FOIA’s opening section. “This Act is not intended to cause an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,”
Grafton Township Assessor’s Office policy is individual PINs, available on its and other web sites, as well as township-wide PINs, are public records.
However, neighborhood-specific PINs are private data because they can be used to locate a specific home address. Zielinski conveyed the basis for that policy is the FOIA itself which protects personal privacy by specifying home addresses as private information.
Moving from quoting statutes to personal beliefs, Zielinski conveyed the softer side of his office’s policy.
“My experience working as a volunteer in a battered women’s shelter helped form this policy because I personally saw the extent to which some individuals will go trying to track down their estranged spouse or mate.
“The suggestion to ‘Let law enforcement deal with the matter’ is a purely political, kick the can down the road, alternative that works only until the Coroner is removing a battered corpse.”
What authority did Al have to reassess properties in a non-quadrennial year?
You are kidding, right?
The assessor is doing his job and assessing property.
Mr. Zielinski,
You were instructed to NOT reassess in a non-Quad year by the McHenry County Chief Assessor, yet you re-assessed.
You were instructed to provide open information by a tax paying voter (of which you said above you work for), yet you denied it, despite this clear passage in the IL property tax code:
(35 ILCS 200/9-30)
Sec. 9-30. Property records systems – Townships and multi-townships. The township or multi-township assessor may spend funds for the preparation, establishment and maintenance of a detailed property record system which would provide information useful to assessment officials. The assessor also may enter into contracts with persons, firms or corporations for the preparation and establishment of the record system. The property record system shall include up-to-date and complete tax maps, ownership lists, valuation standards and property record cards, including appraisals, for all or any part of the property in the township or multi-township assessment district in accordance with reasonable rules and procedures prescribed by the Department, but the system and records shall not be considered to be assessments nor limit the powers and duties of assessing officials. The record shall be available to all assessing officials and to the public.
(Source: P.A. 82-554; 88-455.)
You were instructed by the township supervisor to defer FOI requests to the clerk, yet bypassed the clerk.
You were instructed by the township supervisor to hand over the taxpayer’s requested information, but still have yet to provide the information.
You were told by Assistant Attorney General of the State that your office is part of the township body, yet you still consider the Assessor’s office your own separate entity, and then declare yourself the FOI officer.
Now you are making declarations that are for a law enforcement body to determine, of which you hold no background except volunteer work that no one can verify.
Why is it that you are beholden to no one?
Why, a first time assessor and first time government official, do you consider yourself so absolute?
35 ILCS 200/9-75: “…or the township or multi-township assessor of any township in that county, may in any year revise and correct an assessment as appears to be just.”
I wonder what is his position on the following relative to pins and addresses?
McHenry County GIS provides maps on-line which can be used to identify any pin number in the County.
Along with the pin number is assessment information such as who gets the tax bill.
Just what information does the Grafton Township possess that should be kept private and not subject to FOIA?
It sounds as if the main reason for the privacy concerns expressed by the assessor is that he wishes to make it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to view the comps used in justifying (or maybe NOT justifying) the increased assessment.
Figures lie and liars figure.
If you don’t know EXACTLY which properties your property is being compared to, you’ve lost the game before the first pitch.
AFAIC, redacting the PIN serves only one purpose: shielding the assessor.
Zielinski, Please expound on your softer side.
So you will give out a single house PIN, you give out the PIN’s of all houses in the township, but you won’t give out PIN’s for a neighborhood?
Why?
Please explain and give an example because I can’t think of a single example that this policy would help to protect anyone except your office
Foodie, I wouldn’t call what he is doing “assessing properties.”
I bet you thought Blago was doing a bang up job at governing too, right?
Get real, this guy should be in jail with Blago for what he did to those people
The McHenry County maps, just like the township web site, provides PINs only one at a time.
That makes a malicious search much more difficult.
I’m not saying the data is not out there.
I’m merely saying our office won’t make searching within neighborhoods easy.
If some looney gets the data somewhere else, finds their prey and someone is beaten or killed, his/her blood is not on my/our office’s hands.
Many readers might be too young to remember when nobody could use someone’s SSN for identification purposes; everyone’s identity was safe.
Now everybody and their brother wants to use SSNs because they’re unique!
So now we have identity theft that was non-existent before SSNs became public data.
I’m a Libertarian/Republican.
As stated in the article, part of my responsibility is balancing transparency with protecting our residents’ privacy.
Our policy accomplishes that.
Mr. Zielinski,
I find it interesting that you take to message boards and blogs to defend your FOI stance, yet never raised this issue of public safety at the last two Grafton meetings where you are in front of the voters and taxpayers that you swore to defend.
(I heard you were quite silent on the topic last Monday.)
But still, you have stated you must adhere to the IL Property tax code, which includes this passage:
(35 ILCS 200/9-30)
The property record system shall include up-to-date and complete tax maps, ownership lists, valuation standards and property record cards, including appraisals, for all or any part of the property in the township or multi-township assessment district in accordance with reasonable rules and procedures prescribed by the Department, but the system and records shall not be considered to be assessments nor limit the powers and duties of assessing officials. The record shall be available to all assessing officials and to the public.
(Source: P.A. 82-554; 88-455.)
Since you are clearly concerned about the welfare of your voters, how about this:
a person making an FOI request submits to a background check, which he can provide the township clerk along with the request.
If he/she clears the background check, then the full data can be provided.
I am also sure any citizen would agree to the caveat that he not release the data to third parties without notification.
That way, you are not only in FOI compliance, but also keep your taxpayers safe!
Congrats!
I’m sure you will be reaching out to law enforcement authorities (the people in charge of safety, not you.) at the start of business Monday to see if some type of agreement can be reached.
You guys seem to be glossing over the fact that he’s trying to hide his work.
Zielinski is trying to keep some of this information from the public, going so far as to ignore protocol, exceed his authority, and hide the information that he did release from the appointed FOIA officer.
Is it a stretch to think he did this because he knows his assessments are either incorrect or improper and is trying to hide his incompetence and/or criminal act?
Like a kid who is caught with his hand in the cookie jar…
The Assessor’s office is not its own unit of government.
There is no line item on property tax bills for an Assessor’s office, it’s included with the Townships.
The Illinois Comptroller and Treasurer don’t assign an ID to Assessor’s offices (other than multi-township assessment districts in rural areas with low population).
Rather the Comptroller and Treasurer assign a unique ID to the Township, and Township Road & Bridge.
But the claim is the assessor’s office is its own unit of government for FOIA purposes?
With all the online resources to locate someone, neighborhood PINs have to fall near the bottom of the totem pole.
Most people don’t even know neighborhood PINs exist.
People deserve to have the same grouping of data as assessor’s to protect their taxpayer dollars in understanding their assessment.
The Cook County Assessor has an online property search including neighborhood PIN.
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/newsearch.aspx
The name of the property owner is not returned in the Cook County Assessor neighborhood search.
If safety is the concern why not release all the neighborhood pin data with the property owner name omitted?
Mr. Zielinski,
One more thing: stop bamboozling your citizens about the equalizer.
The equalizer for Grafton township was set at just over 0.98 for 2014.
It was adjusted upward to 1.1 because the Chief County Assessor felt YOU ASSESSED AT TOO LOW OF LEVELS.
If you call any other assessor in McHenry County, they would inform you of this.
Of course, all other township assessors in 2014 DIDN’T REASSESS.
The 2014equalizer was 1.011 not 1.1.
1% error on $1.3 billion of value, not 10%.
The smallest “correction” of all McHenry townships.
Zielinski,
How did you get it so close?
Perhaps manually change a bunch of neighborhoods’ assessments that you are now trying everything in your power to hide from the public?
If you are that good and confident, then share the data, open your office’s files and stop hiding information.
No one believes the nonsense you write.
Facts and only facts tell the whole story and your lack of facts is telling everyone a heck of a story.
Still waiting for an example by the way on how someone could use a neighborhood PIN to find someone.
I sure hope the complainers here will appeal their assessment this year and save us all their bellyaching because they missed the deadline last year.
If the comments posted under the name of Al Zielinki are those of the currently elected Township Assessor, he is in my opinion dangerous.
I agree with Mark, his office is not a unit of government and the posting relative to social security numbers is so wrong it is disgraceful.
Al Z. is probably confused about the PIN number and privacy topic.
However, it is a sad thing that the Grafton Board of Trustees are inciting residents based on their own sour grapes.
Their chosen candidate for assessor lost the election and now they will find any means and use it to hurt Al Z. politically.
When will Grafton Township start to work together?
This goes on year after year, its ridiculous!
The complainers here need to realize that they are just tools.
We as citizens of Grafton elect the Board and other public officials to represent the public and make the Right, most moral and ethical decisions possible that will help improve the overall welfare of the people they represent.
It doesn’t take a genius to see who is right here and who is wrong.
Al Zielinski is a cancer who after only one year of service has caused more problems in this township than every other politician in this township combined.
Honestly foodie, can you blame them for wanting to separate themselves from this guy?
He is on pace to bankrupt this township
A frivolous lawsuit from a resident, without even the benefit of a response from the attorney general’s office, might bankrupt the township.
You are very anxious to pass judgement without all of the information.
Take a breath and relax. Emotional responses are not usually the best.
I am not saying the assessor is doing everything right, but you need to look at the bigger picture.
The assessor and board have been in office since May of 2013, quite a lot longer than one year.
This board cannot separate themselves from the assessor. He was elected to office, just as they were.
If the board would accept that he is the chosen person for this job, respect that and choose to work with him, they will all be better able to serve those who put them in office, whether their election was “right or wrong”.
Voters make the best choices they can at the time.
We all have to live with it and do the best we can.
Township assessors take office much later than the other township officials.
Dear foodie,
Since the tax burden on subdivisions like Cheswick and the Gates increased by hundreds of thousands, they are well within their right to see how and why the township assessor reached those calculations.
They are just asking for the data, and the assessor refuses, so a court must decide.
As for cooperation from the rest of the township board, I suggest you go look at the Grafton meeting minutes for the past year.
It is fair to conclude that it is the township assessor that fails to work with them.
Each property owner that is not satisfied with their assessment has the right to appeal it.
Going to a lawyer is a waste of money and time.
Its true the assessor takes office in January where as the other offices take office a few months earlier in May.
Thanks for reminding me.
The minutes can be written in a prejudiced manner.
Clerks are discouraged from including ver bat um dialogues and this clerk jas done this often…probably in order to gain board approval.
You have been caught in the web pf ssensationalism and politics.
Neither of these will address your assessment dissatisfaction.
Appealling your assessment can be taken to the state board of appeals which has the authority to refund you any taxes you may have paid in excess.
The local courts may not do that in the end.
Why waste the time appealing your assessment until you understand how the assessor calculated the number?
That would needlessly cost the taxpayers money.
Instead, figure out how the assessor came to his number by gathering information and doing the calculations yourself.
Then you can decide if you want to appeal.
This is exactly what happened.
But Mr. Zielinski refused to supplied the information needed.
His refusal to release public information is what caused this mess.
He is the reason tax payers’ dollars are being wasted.
And as far as the town assessor being an elected position, I’m pretty sure Mr. Zielinski won’t need to worry about these kind of problems after the next time people go to the polls.
Do you think Al Z is the first assessor that a taxpayer has not been happy with?
That is why we have the appeal system.
It takes very little time and the cost of an appraisal is about $200 to $500.
Can you really hire a lawyer for that much?
They won’t even look at you for that much.
You are too busy trying to attack a person who really doesn’t make much difference in the end.
Why would you bother?
Is it some encouragement you may have received from others?
Take care of your assessment and let politics and the press take care of finding their own business.
I don’t know of any law that requires the assessor to reveal his work product.
He may have reviewed the available data and picked a number based on his experience.
How do you foia that?
Only public records are subject to foia.
Per property tax law, the assessment records of property and the calculations are all public knowledge.
I cited a passage in a comment above.
A resident has the right to see how it was calculated and assessed.
That’s common sense and part of transparent government.
I looked back at your post and the calculations are not part of the statute you quoted.
Uh….valuation standards.
Either way a judge will decide.
Oh dear.
If you believe that property valuation is the same as assessment calculations you may lose quite a lot of money in court.
I really thought you just wanted your assessment fixed.
FWIW, during the election, it was determined that Al Z. was posing as another person on a local website and writing supporting posts defending his actions…
What are your thoughts on this, foodie?
I think that was undesirable.
If you think I am defending him, you have missed the point completely.
Suing the township over the assessor’s actions is a waste of time and money.
The most prudent course of action is to appeal your assessment.
If you think the township should be sued because you don’t like the assessor, you are really missing the point.
Suing the township will cost everyone, including you.
The township will have to hire an attorney to defend the suit.
Just use the appeal process and forget the lawyers, they are in it to make a profit for themselves.
Knowing the right time to expend your efforts is very important.
If you don’t like the assessor, make sure you run against him in 2017.
Neighborhood-specific PIN data is a public record.
It might be but the final decision doesn’t rely on public debate.
The Attorney General created a simple, no cost, non-litigious process for dispute resolution: the Public Access Counselor.
If the resident had filed a no-cost Complaint with the Attorney General’s Office resulting in a Binding Opinion, or even a Non-Binding Opinion, our Office would have immediately modified our office policy as directed and provided the information.
The crux of the matter appears to be a resident who is upset with an assessment below what he paid for the property less than three years prior to the assessment and the political theater it provides.
To clarify Attorney General FOIA opinions are not binding (has their ever been an exception?)
Both are described on the Attorney General FOIA web site:
http://foia.ilattorneygeneral.net
There are times when the Attorney General gets bold enough to issue a binding opinion.
A few binding decisions from the Attorney General on FOIA, but no penalties or enforcement mechanism?
A very low percentage of Attorney General / Public Access Counselor FOIA decisions are binding.
This from the Attorney General FOIA website.
“It is the public policy of this State that public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business and that the people have a right to be informed as to the conduct of their business.”
– Illinois Open Meetings Act, 5 ILCS 120/1.
Northwest Herald
Grafton Township violated Freedom of Information Act, Lake in the Hills resident says
Aug. 17, 2015
By Chelsea McDougall
http://www.nwherald.com/2015/08/17/grafton-township-violated-freedom-of-information-act-lake-in-the-hills-resident-says/a9s34ps/?page=1
I see that Brian McKnight has filed suit on 8-6 and is due in court in November.
Brian has chosen to do this without appealing his assessment or filing a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office.
In my opinion, Brian must be suit happy with money to burn.
The assessor’s calculations are not subject to FOIA so he has no case.
I have learned not to waste time arguing with someone who has no reason, which Brian apparently has not a drop of reason or financial sense.
Apparently someone has encouraged Brian and they should stop.
Obviously the assessor’s political enemies have found a resident who has no sense or reason and decided to exploit him and waste township funds to further their political cause.
I am very disappointed in Supervisor Jim Kearns for allowing this to happen, in the end he is responsible.
Oh dear! Now the conspiracy theories are flying!
Foodie, please tell us your thoughts on who is at fault for Al Zielinski losing his FOIA officer title that he appointed to himself.
I’d also love to hear more about how people can’t FOIA Al Zielinski’s internal thoughts.
This is so entertaining.
Keep going foodie, Let’s hear more!
Guess I hit a nerve, the truth does that.
There is a fixed amount of money demanded by law from the taxing bodies.
Each property taxpayer may seek to lower his assessment, or demand complete tax amnesty if a business which can threaten jobs.
But the total fixed amount of money demanded by taxing bodies remains constant.
SO let’s assume that all taxpayers who are happy with artificially low tax assessment do NOT appeal assessment,
and all taxpayers with what they perceive as ‘high’ assessments (especially in comparison to artificially low assessments which have been in the news) file objections and appeal their own assessments.
Let’s assume that all taxpayers who appeal are granted a 10% assessment reduction.
Let’s assume that for whatever reason, 10% of all properties are under assessed and do not appeal.
Then:
10% of property EAV= 10% of ‘TOTAL EAV’
90% of property EAV is reduced to 81% of its prior value.
Now:
the formula for calculating tax rate is Total tax extension (the amount demanded by law by taxing bodies)/divided by total EAV.
Before assessment appeals, the tax rate was tax extension/1(EAV)
After assessment appeals by 90% of property taxpayers with 10% reductions, the tax rate becomes:
total extension/.91(EAV)
(EXAMPLE:
Woodstock D200 extension$59million/$719millionEAV= .0820 (compared to last year rate of .0786)
If 90% of property taxpayers achieve a 10% lower assessment on appeal, the school tax rate will rise from 8.2% of EAV to 9% of EAV. (ps that means 3% of total home value)
$59million/(.91)$719million=.09
So 9% tax rate as the EAV gets lower and lower.
SO the tax RATE before people seek assessment reductions, tax abatements, and tif money which diverts tax revenue from taxing bodies is LOWER than after the tax exemptions or assessment reductions are granted.
AFTER individual taxpayers get whatever reductions or tif diversion they get, the RATE goes up for ALL taxpayers.
1. Individual taxpayers pay higher rate on same or lower assessment.
2. Tif taxpayers enjoy bigger benefits the higher the tax RATEs go, because their municipal rulers get all that much more money to give to developers.
3. Individual taxpayers who are under assessed may find potential buyers skeptical of price evaluations based upon unnatural high tax rate on unnatural low assessment.
A key point being since a property tax appeal does not change the extension of any taxing district, a property tax deduction won via the appeals process results in a tax hike for other taxpayers.
Susan, you make a very good point.
The problem in Grafton was Zielinski re-assessed one year early before the quadrennial using a dubious clause in the IL tax code stating he was justified in doing so. (The IL courts have stated it does not give assessors the green light to do this.)
He stated some neighborhoods were undervalued and should be bought up.
But he re-assessed everyone, even subdivisions that met the 33 1/3 requirement, except for any homes that had won a Board of Review appeal. (17,000 of 22,000 properties)
Several residents appealed, but since they’re being compared to homes next to them, who were also raised, not all were successful.
Meanwhile, the rest of McHenry County didn’t re-assess, and stayed at 2011 assessed values, or whatever value a home was at if they won the Board of Review.
At those 2011 values, there was a set tax rate for all those levies, which remained relatively constant.
When Zielinski raised the values before everyone else, the tax rate didn’t adjust, as it was too small a portion of the levies, and a massive tax burden was shifted to these Grafton homes.
Anyone that got a raised value got killed, anywhere from a 20 to 50% raise.
And now some people on fixed income can’t afford to live in Grafton.
But they can’t sell their house, and home values are dropping, as a prospective homeowner can literally go across the street and buy a home with a lower tax burden.
When Cheswick figured out how this tax burden shifted, they asked Zielinski in a meeting if he was aware this would occur, since ALL OTHER experienced township assessors stood pat.
He said yes.
And this was just the start…
What are you looking for in the lawsuit against Grafton?
Long story short, the lawsuit is because an FOI was made for assessment data, as some residents wondered why their values went up and others went down, and Mr. Zielinski refuses to hand the pertinent, very public data over.
AZ will probably hop back on here and have the last word, but that is what it comes down to.
Did you file a complaint with the Attorney General’s office?
You realize that an opinion, no matter what kind, in your favor would bear a great deal of weight, don’t you?
The Better Government Association and Citizens Advocacy Center in Elmhurst can provide plenty of examples where taxing districts ignored Attorney General FOIA opinions.
The games are seemingly endless.
One historic example is Wheaton Warrenville District 200 ignored Lisa Madigan’s opinion to release the Superintendent’s employement contract to a local blogger.
The question was asked to the school district, why did school district release the contract to the press and not the blogger.
The response from the school district was the Superintendent “personally” provided the contract to newspaper, he wasn’t acting on behalf of the school district.
Plus, the school district asserted, the employment contract is confidential because it was placed in the personnel file, and the contents of the personnel file are exempt from FOIA.
Lisa Madigan responded that’s ludicrous, you can’t hide an employment contact in the personnel file to make it exempt from FOIA, just white out and confidential information such as social security number or whatever, and release the contract.
The DuPage County Circuit Court agreed with the school district, but the Appellate Court and Supreme Court agreed with the blogger.
That case affirmed the public’s right to public sector employment contracts.
Mark O Stern vs Wheaton Warrenville Cmmunity Unit School District 200.
These types of silly games where the taxing district claims FOIA exemption based on rather flimsy assertions happen far too often all over the state in all types of taxing districts in all sorts of communities.
By the way the IL Supreme Court agreed unanimously with the blogger, that being all 7 justices.
http://www.illinoiscourts.gov/Opinions/SupremeCourt/2009/May/107139.pdf
The difference in this case is our office would abide by either a non-binding or binding opinion.
We’re here to serve not waste taxpayers’ time and money.
Part of that service is providing data needed to understand their assessments.
An equal part is protecting their privacy.
In times like this, we’ll always defer to a more knowledgeable, arms-length third party with no vested interest, other than justice, in the outcome.
After reviewing the FOIA statute I can see why Brian McKnight is refusing to file a complaint with the attorney general.
He is relying on the Assessor’s belief that he can designate himself as the FOIA officer for his office.
How unfortunate this is.
As long as the assessor testifies to this belief, that he did in fact act on behalf of the township, McKnight has a case that his request was denied.
It is not required for a requestor to file a complaint with the AG, only that their request was denied.
If McKnight files a complaint with the AG office and they decide against releasing these calculations, the township bears no liability and his suit is loss.
The best solution is for the assessor to announce that he is not able to act as a FOIA officer, only the clerk can.
At that point, McKnight’s unable to say that his request was denied and everything starts over.
The township needs to act in unison on this matter.
Public orders by the board only serve to back the assessor into a corner, which is politically incorrect and damaging to the township, to say the least.
In the end, the attorney for McNight will have quite a challenge to prove that the assessor’s calculations are subject to FOIA, but why play it out and take the risk and expense?
This situation calls for some statesman like behavior on everyone’s part to reach a solution that pacifies McKnight and saves my tax dollars from being spent on a lawsuit.
Who is willing to stand down and be the bigger man?
Alan Zielinski,
Can you post your assessment process on your website for everyone to see?
How does your complex process work and how are the numbers calculated?
I think that would really help clear up a lot of questions in the township on how the process changed from Bill’s to your’s and that information would really help residents to “understand their assessments.”
No personal data or specific township data is required.
Just the process, is that possible?
Thanks!
Per the township web site, the Assessor was the FOIA Officer for the Assessor’s Office at the time of the inquiry.
The web site was changed only afterward.
A screen shot was provided to Mr. McKnight in my reply and acknowledgement e-mail.
We have synopses for each neighborhood that presents an overview of the neighborhood including the number and summary statistics for the sales used to build the regression model as well as the crux of our analysis including the final value equation.
We tried to get them posted on the web site for 2014 but were told the Supervisor would not authorize the expense.
One of our Deputies offered to do it for free but we were refused the web site password to create the links and upload the data.
We’re hoping to have that matter resolved this year so everyone can see exactly how their assessment was determined just by going to the township web site, inputting their PIN or address, clicking on their neighborhood code and downloading the relevant synopsis for their neighborhood.
That seems like a really good addition to the site.
I hope to see them up there this year.
Do the synopsis sheets contain sample size and other inputs used in the regression analysis?
I’m assuming each neighborhood uses the same process and tests.
Is that regression process outlined anywhere?
If you could include a summary of that process with the synopses on the website, that would be top notch.