An important aspect of RRG’s service delivery program is the recruitment, training, mentoring, and oversight of regional assessment staff. RRG teams with two or more neighboring communities and assists with the joint hiring of an associate assessor. The hired employee becomes a member of our staff and is assigned to your community on a mutually agreed upon schedule. Your associate assessor is responsible for general office tasks including office administration, property inspections, property database maintenance, and public assistance. Regional Associate Assessors have an individual career development plan designed to enhance their value to assigned communities.

Associate assessors are supported by RRG’s central staff of property tax appraisers, call center associates, technical specialists, and back-office operations support.

Many offices are already served by an assessor, but require assistance in specific areas. RRG staff members are available to serve as specialists assisting with such tasks as residential market modeling, commercial/industrial appraisal, personal property valuation, tax appeals, and IT support.

At RRG we believe that the revaluation process entails much more than estimating property values. While we will bid on a traditional revaluation contract, we encourage prospective clients to consider the added value we bring in working with you throughout the year. A continuous relationship over time leads to improved assessments. Mass appraisers simply can’t do a credible job without becoming intimately familiar with your community and its unique properties.

RRG appraisers are also available to assist with special revaluation assignments including residential modeling and table updates, commercial and industrial appraisals, and personal property.

RRG also offers assistance and mentoring to staff wanting to conduct in-house revaluations. We can supplement on-site, phone, and e-mail assistance with access to our analytical tools, report templates, and certification report outlines. We will help walk you through a successful revaluation and certification program.

Our company is currently marketing a new service for small to mid-sized assessors’ offices needing assistance with their public information responsibilities. RRG will in the coming months launch a Regional Assessors Call Center.

Here is how it works. Using our Virtual Assessors Office (VAO)^TM technology we maintain a remote access link to your office. Through the VAO^TM, most of your office’s resources become available to our call center staff. If your office is closed, happens to be short on staff, or is temporarily tied up with other matters, calls are automatically redirected to the call center. The public will be greeted by a knowledgeable (and pleasant) assistant who will either provide the requested information, or will post a special assistance request on your community’s VAO^TM issues tracker

Many assessors’ offices struggle to keep up with their administrative workload. Using our VAO^TM technology, your RRG regional service center can assist you with CAMA records maintenance, including the processing of deed and map changes, mailing address changes, Department of Revenue (DOR) reporting, and the generation, mailing, and processing of forms. Our administrative assessment specialists operate on a strict calendar. Well defined standards govern every aspect of this work.

Several of our clients first came to RRG late in the year needing assistance with tax rate setting in the eleventh hour. Negotiating the myriad steps in getting to tax rate approval frustrates many Boards of Assessors, and even stresses veteran assessors. RRG staff can assist your community with compiling new revenue growth numbers, preparing for and attending tax rate classification hearings, and preparing the assessors portion of the annual Department of Revenue report (in Massachusetts this is the Annual Recap). We will also assist in the preparation of tax billing files.

Another technology developed by RRG is what we call the Core Municipal Database^TM. Our comprehensive, cross departmental database is designed to provide interdepartmental access to land related data. The database is standalone with refresh links to the Assessor’s CAMA database. Subscription to this service provides any authorized department within town hall to use this web-based application to view and, if authorized, to maintain critical land records.

Is your assessors’ office understaffed? Is your office being subjected to public criticism? Do your office operations reflect the best practices of the tax assessment industry? RRG can answer questions like these by conducting an operational audit. Areas for focused study include manpower needs assessment, office productivity, staff knowledge and training assessments, technology utilization, customer (taxpayer) satisfaction surveys, data and assessment quality.

Over a period of years the quality of your property data can erode. With assessment staff applying different data collection and entry standards, the impulse to make isolated 'tweaking' adjustments, and less than effective periodic inspection programs, the property data upon which assessments are based may work against the assessors’ mandate of fair and equitable assessment.

RRG can help evaluate the quality of your assessment database. Through sample field inspections, data uniformity analysis, and the estimation of tax dollar impacts associated with errant data, we can help your office direct its inspection program.

RRG has the experience you need to assist with your tax appeal workload. Many assessors find the thought of going to court intimidating. Often too, cases get scheduled during the most inopportune times. With experience representing towns in hundreds of cases, we bring to bear the experience you need to resolve your cases.

Our process for resolving your cases includes gathering the relevant assessment and appeals documents, conducting a property inspection, meeting with the taxpayers to understand their concerns, preparing a findings report, meeting with the Board of Assessors to discuss findings and recommendations, negotiating potential settlements with taxpayers, and if required; preparing a valuation defense summary report and representing the town as an expert witness. RRG will assign a licensed appraiser with substantial assessment appeals experience to your case.

RRG staff work on most of the computer-assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) systems being used by New England assessors. With no CAMA system of our own, who better to objectively evaluate your proposed system acquisition. RRG assessors know all of the strengths and weaknesses of the systems your office might be considering. Allow us to help you make the right systems choices.