How the Property Appraiser Determines Your Home’s Value

And that's why most cases when people say, oh, my assessments too high and we'd say, we'll go to ask Garrett if you would sell the home for that amount. Yeah, because when you look at your tax bill, you see the value of your structure, right? The building and you go, that's way low, you know, in terms of market value. But as a real estate person, you might recognize that as just a homeowner, you might not be looking at it from that angle. Coach, welcome. Absolutely. Glad to be here. Yeah, welcome to the show. Bob and Rika is property appraiser for Hillsboro County. I appreciate you doing the show. I think there's a lot of questions, right? About what the property appraiser's office does. Like we have these different offices within the county government tax collector, property appraiser. That's you. So thanks for doing the show today. And I hope we can, we can sort of establish what you do, what your office does, what it doesn't do, maybe important what it doesn't do. But maybe important what it doesn't do. So why don't we start with that, right? So what is, why is the property appraiser's office necessary in general, right? What is the structure of this? I think before we went live, you talked about the state, you know, requires the county government to have this office. Well, clearly, I mean, there's two large revenue sources in the state of Florida, sales tax and property taxes. So you have to have the, if you're going to have property taxes, you have to have an appropriate appraiser in each county that figures out the value of properties so that subsequently based on the tax rates, what, you know, what the, how you would recruit that revenue. And so really to, to kind of explain it, our constitutional charge as the property appraiser's office is to value all of the property homes for county is about 570,000 properties, more or less each year, that we value. And then any exemptions, the people may qualify, we, you know, we accept those applications and then, you know, homestead exemption, et cetera. That literally is the, what our office does. And so that's, that's something that's an ongoing basis each and every year. Now, what we don't do is we don't set the tax rates. So each year, the tax authority, City of Tampa Hillsboro County School Board, Children's Board, Port Authority, Aviation Authority, City of Temple Terrace, Plant City, et cetera, they set the tax rates, the millage based on the revenue that they desire that particular year for their budget. We don't have any handshake with that, and we don't collect the taxes. That's the tax collector's office. And so a lot of folks like that we do all of those things, but we really don't. So all we do based on January 1st of each year is assess the, you know, our opinion of the value for the piece of property. We send all of the information based on, on that value estimate all together to the taxing authorities. They set the tax rate to the millages and we go from there. And so how is the property assessed like let's just use maybe my house as an example, right? Obviously it's public record. What I paid for my house. Is it based on that? How do you guys find the value of somebody's home? Well, there's three approaches to value when you're talking about assessing the value of property. The sales comparison approach, the cost approach and the income approach. So the sales comparison approach in your example for a single family home. In the most, in most cases, we would use the sales comparison approach, which is the same as a, as a fee appraiser or private appraiser would use in case of, you know, you were taking out a loan on your property or your, your, your buying a piece of property. What have you trying to figure out the value is. So the approach from the stem, that standpoint is you're going to compare sales of like properties, comparable within an neighborhood. And then that gives you an idea of what the value of the property may be. Now the difference with us is we are at a mass appraisal world. 570,000 properties, maybe 300,000 or so, that are homesteaded properties that homeowners have. So in that case, it's a little bit different than that we're using raw square footage. Sort of a 40,000 foot view and a larger group of comparable within a neighborhood. Whereas a fee appraiser or private appraiser, you know, picks out say three comparable in the neighborhood. It's a much more granular. They're in the home. They're looking, okay, this one has granted countertops. This one does not. So it's a, it's a more of a forensic kind of view of the value. The approach is the same. Now the income approach is for income producing properties. Obviously, the cost approach is, is literally cost of replacement of the, of the structures or the buildings on a piece of property. New minus depreciation, then you add in the land value. So the approaches are the same. One of the biggest differences is that we do it based on January 1st of every year. That's our effective data evaluation. One reason being you want to know that if we live next to each other that my house is being valued the same day as your house for the purposes of property tax. So it's not based on the sale. No, not on the individual sale. Now, ultimately, that sale price will go into, you know, the paella that ends up being here, that, you know, at some point, maybe the next next year when we're looking at a house that sold down the street, your sale will be added into that mix. But your individual, the cost of your individual sale, you know, we'll consider that. And we're going to, we're going to look at it. So when a house sells or you sell a home, we're going to verify that sale, so make sure that it was an arm's length of transactions transaction. And those kinds of things to make sure, because you know, maybe somebody paid if, if the sale was, if somebody came down, it was their homestay when they were kids. So they paid, you know, $200,000 more than it, than it may be worth. We're going to look at it and say, well, why is that, why is the case? Our furniture was included in this. Whatever, right, there's, so that we're going to, we verify all the sales each year so that we can kind of throw them into the mix for the overall when we're considering sales in the future. But the individual sale price is not, so if, if you bought a house for $1.2 million, your taxes aren't going to be exactly based on 100, you know, 1.2 million. And to that end, there's also things that go into the, into the, the ultimate price of the sale that are costs of sale that are not value in nature. So, you know, certain fees, you know, realtors fees, things like that that are part of that sale that may actually not be actual value. So we back the, the state allows us, in fact, requires us to back that out of the ultimate valuation. So that's why generally that along with the fact that that it's based on January 1st, the sale could have taken place in September of that year, kind of is part of the reason that when you look at our values, in most cases, they should be below actual, you know, market value. We always tell people, take a look at the value you have for the purposes of property taxes and then ask your favorite realtor, Garrett Greco, would, you know, would, would, would you list that property at that amount? And generally, we're, you know, 15, 20, 25% lower than, than what would, what it would sell for in the market, open market. And you said there's over half a million properties in Hillsborough County, about 570,000, 570,000. So that's why you have to have this higher view, right? You can't talk to every single time, yeah, well, no, and so that's, it's called mass appraisal. So it's largely based on, we have a thing called a camera system computer assisted mass appraisal. We put all the information in there and it helps us to, to, to kind of crunch the numbers and that. Now, those are all property types as residential, commercial, industrial, and tangible personal property as well, which are returns that businesses send to us. With all the things that they use, like the stuff around this office that you use to do your, your business. AI and algorithms probably play a role in the future if they don't already, right? Trying to figure out more and more, you know, a lot of it's still, you know, somewhat manual, but a lot of it is automated. And, and sort of the, the future of the, of the business is moving more and more towards towards, you know, multiple regression and different modeling like that. And, and again, AI, it can be a tool, but it also can be scary for folks. It's like when people started using drones out there, but it was asking me to use drones, no, not, you don't know. Not yet, I guess, right? Maybe one day. You actually, so when I first bought this building, a guy from your office pulled up, and I had never seen someone from the property appraisal's office on site like that. And I was talking to him like, damn, you guys pull up like that. And he's like, yeah, you know, like we're out in the field and we're looking around and stuff like that. And we were talking about the sale and did it include furniture equipment and some of the concessions and stuff like that. And he was saying, oftentimes, you know, you go out to try to better understand property value just as you describe. So there's people in the field that are actually going to properties, checking them out. Yeah, there's really a couple of ways we have to do in addition to for, for, for news sales, like the one that you're speaking to each year. We have to review or over the course of five years, we do it over a four year period. We have to physically inspect all of the property in Hillsborough County. Part of that is the old fashioned way we have our, you know, hybrid vehicles, you know, so we're very green out in the field doing that, you know, that way more and more now is 80 to 85% of our of our reviews are done using what we call geo viewport, which is a, we actually have people at a monitor or two monitors with all the information. About a piece of property, enhanced aerial photography, street views, and we can do a lot of those reviews as well. How long have you been the property appraiser for I took office in January of 2013, 2013. So since that, I mean, that's over 10 years, but even in the last five years, the sales prices and some of the growth and inflation of the price level with real property is so extreme. So we, we just saw over here this the property in downtown Tampa, David, you, you, you did a write up on it sold for, I think a little over 40 million dollars for that. I guess it was one full city block. I mean, that, that is unbelievable, and I think even five years ago, you, you might not have even seen half that, right? So, so even like the house I bought is probably 150% more than it would have been five, six years ago. So how does your office be dynamic in nature with the recent inflation and so many people moving here at the high level of demand we have? It's probably made you maybe rethink processes or at least be quick with information to try to value. Again, we can't, we can't chase the market or predict the market. We can't, obviously, we keep up with trends and things like that, but you know, we're highly regulated by the Department of Revenue, and it's, again, it's, we're historians for lack of a better term because we're looking based on January 1st of a given year. That's the, that's the effective date of evaluation. So when you receive a date that we're doing this, many people just, or everybody just received their notes or proposed taxes in August. And so that's based on January 1st, 2025 in this case. So, in that, so the data that we're looking at to derive those numbers are largely based on, you know, the previous quarter back in 2024. So things happened during the course of 2025, the market may go up or down now. I will tell you in January 1st, 2025, this year's market was the first year countywide that it was, it was basically a flat market. We didn't see the kind of increases now on an individual basis, particular neighborhoods, particularly particular parts of Hillsborough County, city of Tampa. The values continue to increase a certain amount, not to the extent that we've seen the past. But otherwise, since I took office in 2013 coming out of the Great Recession, we've seen anywhere from six and a half, eight percent, 10 percent. Then we saw, I blame Tom Brady, the between 21 and 22, overall 21 percent to 24 percent increase in overall property value in one year in Hillsborough County. Now, sale prices, as you know, we're based on what part of the county we're in, we're more like 30, 35 percent. So, again, we don't set that. The market is the market. But certainly there's been a great deal of increase in value, which as a result of that, there's been a great deal more revenue accrued by our taxing authorities or more tax, you know. The commensurate to that is at the same time as we all know, there's been a great deal of increase in all of our budgets and what it costs to do business. That translates to government as well. So, there's a balancing act there as well. But again, I have been one to be honest. We like to say, the doge is the operative word right now that we were doge before doge. So, in our office, when I came into office and again utilizing technology that we kind of touched on a bit. When I came into office at 130 employees, we have somewhere around 94 right now. So, in our budget, we've cut our budget like four times in the time that I've been in office and we've had very modest increases in the years that we have. And it's always been something that's passed down, insurance increases going up or requirements coming down from the state for like our retirement and things like that. So, you know, we've been very, very mindful and I've cautioned the tax authorities and it's all kind of coming to fruition now, whether it be the city of Tampa Hillsboro County and others. At some point, people are going to start to say, well, gosh, just so you've been in this whole kind of discussion about property tax reform, which I'm sure we'll talk about, really has to do more about spending and what's going on at the local level. And so, you know, that's kind of what that discussion is all about right now, but certainly values are going up. But I will tell you that it's kind of, we have to remember that a lot of this increase in value and increase in the market is the market. So, folks are willing to come here, have been coming here and pay a certain amount for pieces of property that means values are going to go up as a desirable place to be. I can't artificially change that if I did the Department of Revenue looking at our overall level of assessment would flag us and not pass our tax rolls. So, that is the entire focus of your office. It's not about necessarily the policy that sets the millage or that is up to those boards and authorities and municipalities. The tax collector is the one that collects the tax right collection right when I say they write about her badly in the Bible. But again, your strict focus is just the assessment, the fair assessment, fair and equitable assessment of the property. And that's tricky because, again, on an individual basis, you know, what's fair to you and what you think is equitable are two different things. And frankly, the system is built to protect or to give a great tax shelter to folks that have owned homesteaded property for a longer period of time. And so, that's why we'll get calls with people somebody I bought this property and I'm paying six times as much taxes than that person that's next to me that's been under the save our home's cap home stated for 25 years. So, that's just sort of the way the system is, but we don't really have control over the assessments from the standpoint we can't manipulate it. And they can't call me, or Ken Hagen can't call me and say I really want to build that baseball stadium in the board city or wherever else they're looking can you bump up the assessments, you know. And just, you know, again, so they make the decisions at the end when they once we give them all the information of how much values out there and they say, okay, here's our budget. They make the decision whether to keep the mill is rate the same as for an increase, which they, you know, in some cases, the city of Tampa did a couple years ago. Or the rollback rate, which would be the rollback rate is something that they have to consider each year, which is the rate of the millage or the tax rate that would accrue the same amount of revenue as the previous year. Ah, because the values have been increased, you could potentially roll back the millage rate. And that's why when you look at it, if folks are watching this or they're, then they have their notes to propose taxes, they'll say, well, why are there, they're different columns. And so there's one column there that is that would be that what what the rate would be should the taxing authority decide only to accrue the amount of revenue that they did the previous year, that's the rollback rate. And then generally there's one of of based on last year's rate and then one for the proposed budget going forward. So the governor right now in the state has has a big emphasis on reducing property taxes. And I heard the governor say something about how municipalities are like fat and happy right now, right? I mean, we've had a ton of people move here, that's produced incredibly high property values all around the state. And so because of that, we have a lot of, you know, high level of revenue. And so the conversation now is, do you need to keep the tax levels the same because we have these high values. Again, your office is not to give, well, your office is made to give information probably to the state on those values, but it's not, you know, in regards to how much you should charge people. Misunderstanding may be that that's our fault, right, those property praisers are the ones that have done that. But again, it's the market has done what the market's done and you're involved in it. So you understand that. So that's important for folks to know. And again, as a part of messaging for me, you know, we have, we're regulated and we have to base what's based on the Constitution and state statutes. So, you know, we don't artificially create, you know, and there's been, let's face it, there's been a lot of sales, there's been a lot of velocity in the market. And what have you. So to your point, the idea that the municipalities and taxing authorities at the local level are fat and happy, well, they have had more revenue over the past, you know, decade or more. It seems like a good idea and concept, right, where, you know, a younger person who's maybe around my age, you starting a family wants to buy a home. They are going to be obligated to pay far more than if you had bought and that's the inherent inequity in the system that's that was the unintended consequences of the safer homes, right, cat, but that's not going away. So, so, and let's, let's, let's be honest for a minute, which is crazy, right, these, these days, fat and happy, all, all of government has been fat and happy. So the state government up until this, you know, last couple of years when they found their fiscal responsibility gene, we're spending a great deal of money and record and I spent eight years in the state legislature so I can speak to this a little bit, but they, they were passing, you know, record budgets. Now, you know, that, for whatever reason now, you know, and I like to, it really is kind of completed in this, there's, I call the three P's, there's politics, there's policy and there's practicality when we start talking about this. The politics is pretty simple, you know, if you want to appeal to, you know, people's, this will reaction, and you say taxes are too high, we all agree. I don't, you know, I made myself every year when I, when I said myself, I noticed their proposed taxes. That's really kind of, that's, that's the politics is easy on this. This is really more about spending than it is, where the revenue is coming from. So they finally kind of gone, come around to that point that now they're going with Doge, Florida and the CFO going around and taking a closer look. I will tell you, I don't, as I've already spoken to, I think our office is, is, is a good record on, on that account. And I don't think that anybody that disagrees with the idea that we should be accountable to our spending, you know, or that government should be efficient and, and that. I think it's a little bit scary when you start immediately throwing out fraud and abuse as part of that because it, it plays to that lowest common denominator that immediately. Because if you're talking about fraud, you're talking about intentional, kind of criminal activity, but that being said, we're all okay with that. The reality of it is that there's, like I said, there's two large revenue sources in the state of Florida. There's $55 billion plus of revenue that's accrued each year statewide with property taxes. You can find some percentage of cuts at the local level or in government that will back that, you know, that local governments can cut those things and say, but I don't know that all of that. $55 billion is what you're going to find. So that's where the politics is kind of easy. Then comes the policy. And so it's sort of like the governor and others have said, well, you know, I'm the grandfather and I have the poopy diaper. I was fine playing with the kid, but now they, so here's now you time to return him. You change it. Right. Exactly. And so now they're the, I think the legislature is wrestling with this because on the one hand, how do you, how much of this has to be backfilled? And how do you do that? What do you raise sales tax? 10, 12%. You know, and we can argue about that. Whether that's a good idea because it's regressive. And if you're the panhandle, you go to Georgia to buy your car, whatever. And it's very cyclical based on different things towards them, etc. Right. And also, it's largely regulated at the state level. So I don't know if you want to see a Tampa Hillsborough County and others going to the state every year and having to beg for their money. Right. That's an awful lot of power coming out of Tallahassee as well. At least in theory, with property taxes, you can come to the your county commission city council and complain that, you know, your problems not being filled or whatever, you may or may not get redress, but at least you can do that. And so it's a complicated issue. So that again, when you start to get to the policy of it, and then the practicality, now what you're seeing now is it's more for the discussions, more thing largely geared towards doing something for property for homeowners for property, you know, for homestead property owners. Now, I would argue that that's largely because they're the voters. So you're going to get the most political bang for the buck by doing that. The reality is they're the least affected. Now again, I'm not minimizing it because we're all feeling economic insecurity, all of us. And largely, you know, most of that is more about property insurance than it is this. And I can tell you from our office, we're not getting the doors aren't being beaten down by homeowners that feel like they're being crushed by property tax because if they're homesteaded, they're feeling modest increases. But the problem is a guy like me, a guy like me who bought his house last summer. And so that's where I think the real, if they, if, and I'm hopeful, and I've had these kinds of discussions with some of the people who are on the select committee and others, that if it's a, if they truly want to put something, they can go politically put something outrageous on the ballot in 60%. You know, in North Dakota, they'd had an effort to away with all property taxes and it failed. But if they're, if they're contemplative about it and they put a real serious proposal forward, something like that. So I've suggested things like, what if you phased in the reset? Because again, if you buy a, if you're a new home, let's first time home buyer, like you say, you know, and you want to buy a home. The obvious home owner, we're paying after being in this house for 20 years, and they're paying $1500 in property taxes. And, and so based on an assessed value that's artificially low because of the savor homes cap. Now you buy it in that same home that they bought for $150,000, $20 years ago is now worth $1 million. Well, there's going to be a reset to the just a market value of $1 million minus any exemptions that you may have. And then you're going to start the cap all over again, but your taxes are going to go from $1,500 to $1,500 or $10,000. And that's a big hit, right? So I mean, one of the ideas is, could we phase that in so that for the new home buyer, you only pay a third or third and a third over the three years. So now, you know, again, most of you're going to pay it through escrow any how you can kind of build that into your performer going forward and hopefully that new home buyer, three years from now is going to be doing a little bit better, a little more settled and have a little bit better salary, what have you. There are serious ideas out there. You know, I threw out an idea to couple a property tax refund that would more than cover the average increase in property value and property taxes each year for the for medium home. That price, which generally is between $150 and say $400 a year based on $400,000 median home price that could be paid paid through through every year, there's discretionary funds that the legislature puts in the budget at the end. That's how they fund these various different tax free weeks that they have and things like that community projects. So say if you're a couple that to insurance increases. So if you're if your property insurance goes up 15% you can get a say $500 refund that's going more than cover the increase in your property taxes plus maybe some of the increase that you had. There's so there are some serious ideas out there. I'm hopefully that they'll discuss some of those. I think it's difficult. I mean, if you do away with all homesteaded properties, property taxes, that's a big number. And it'll disproportionately affects certain communities. Do you know the percentage? I mean, if this was a pie, how much of the tax revenue from property taxes is homesteaded? It varies. So it may be as much as 50 or 60% in the city of Tampa, like a bedroom community like Temple Terrace where you don't have a lot of commercial. You're mostly homesteaded properties. Some communities will be less meaning for that particular municipality. If that was eliminated, it could be devastating. It could be it could be very difficult to try to figure that out. And again, on again, you can look at it. It varies a bit, but somewhere between 50 60% of property taxes are public safety. Right. So, you know, because that's and so you're going to be at and and I know that's part of the. The discussion that's going on out there as as the governor and and the CFO are going out there and and be the drum about this issue that they're already kind of saying all of the people are the local communities are going to come out and say, well, it's going to affect your public safety. Well, that's what they're going to say. Well, it is. So we need to have we need to have a serious discussion about this. Take the politics out of it. I think we can all agree that there are some some reforms that can be made. My role, and this is not self-serving in that I'm the property praise because I think we would so exist one way or the other. Sure. Is is to educate and hopefully that we can have a. You know, a real discussion. You know, outside of the, you know, the political realm of what is legitimate property tax reform that I think is needed. But the logic makes sense to me. I mean, I, you know, I bought an expensive home. My wife and I probably overextended ourselves to get what we needed to build a family and be long term. You know, we, I think we bought a house that sort of as could be our forever home. That comes with a higher price. That comes with a higher tax bill. That's our choice as a family. But I also, you know, when you look at the homestead exemption, I think that $50,000 exemption has been in place for a long time. And from 5,000 to 25,000 now up to 50,000. But 50,000 from what I remember has been in place 10 year. Yeah. And that's the trick of anything that you place in statute that's a set amount because I mean that $20 bill, you know, that my father may have given me when I in 1982 to go see a movie. Yeah. So now we do have, we did past constitutional amendments, so we're indexing the homestead exemption to inflation every year now. So if inflation is 7% then your homestead exemption. Well, it would have been nice five years ago. Yeah, it's funny how that happened after the fact that's part of it. I think that I've looked at it and if you, since like 1934 or something when, when homestead exemption was created, it was created. If you kind of index it to inflation, it's going to be a much higher number. So that may be one of the things that'll be suggested on the ballot. Is it we raise it? Is it we raise that, you know, whatever it may be, 150,000, 300,000, 500,000 it, you know, and. Well, it's got to look, it's got to be higher. I think that when you look at a $50,000 exemption, that's great if your home values $300,000. This episode is brought to you by the official remodeler of the TBD podcast, Colour House Remodeling Company. Built on the belief that every homeowner deserves a premium experience, Colour House is redefining high-end home remodeling with their commitment to integrity, craftsmanship, and quality communication. 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What sets Chancy Design apart is their ability to preserve the sole and character of historic buildings while seamlessly integrating modern design and functionality. They blend tradition with innovation, creating spaces that honor the past while meeting today's needs. Check out their work at www.ChancyDesign.com. When you start talking about now the median home price is 400,000, you said in Hillsborough County. Probably going up as we grow has increased, well you tell me if you know, what was the median price when you first took office? Oh boy, I have this on my desk, but it's raised. It was less than $200,000. Less than $200,000. So you've seen an over 100% rate of inflation on the median home price. Can you look up, David? Could we see the year homestead was set at $50,000? I'm sure it, I mean, 12 years ago, 10 years ago. That would have been under the Chris administration. So this was probably 2008. Would it affect 2009? Is that right? I'm trying. We got Esther on the keyboard right now. Shout out Esther. Remember, because that may have been at the same time the portability came about. But it's like that $50,000. My point is it doesn't do as much as it was intended to do when that was passed. So I could see a really fair argument for increasing that. Yes. You know, eliminating property taxes as a whole. I think that's obviously too far. How do you pay for public safety? Like we talked about, but maybe I think there's, I think they've talked about that 2007. What was it? It went into fact like 2008. I think. Oh, what is it? That sounds right though, right? Maybe 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. Something like that. Clearly prices have increased since then. And I think that's the entire genesis of this argument is, hey, look. Home prices are extremely expensive. People are getting crushed. I mean, I was sticker shocked at my bill, right? Again, my choice to buy an expensive home for my family. And again, that's based on the reset. So if you looked at you, you bought an existing home right now. Well, so, so I got hammered. So I bought. Did you call us? No, but listen, I bought my house from a retired green beret. His tax bill was like $800. Well, he had, he was right. So he had various exemptions. He had disability. I mean, he had. And by the way, awesome policy. A guy like that, a veteran who's disabled can have, I think it's like 100%. Depending on the level of, you know, that they were. I mean, he here, he is in a home that has a really, really high valuation. And he only has to pay $600 a year. Great policy for people like that. Which is interesting, by the way, because, and we, this is not something that I would have taken on. But out of, I believe Jacksonville a couple of years ago. The property prazer came to the legislature with the idea that it didn't go very far because people were complaining because there were folks that like generals that were living in multi-million dollar houses. Right, that got some kind of a designation, you know, and we're paying nothing. But, you know, most of us said, let's not touch that. It's a, it's a group of people that I feel are sort of separate from the rest of the pack. These are, these are military people that are serving our country. They need to have, you know, protections in place that they can, you know, it is a weird line to cross when you start talking about like a house on the beach or whatever. That's $4 million, you know, something like that is a little different. But I think in general, yeah, like I love the idea of increasing the homestead limit as a star. We'll have to see how it all shakes out, but it does seem like the governor is on this. You kind of constantly consistently see him speaking about this. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. Again, and again, we're going to the politics of it in the rhetoric. I understand all that. I've been, you know, involved in a long time. Some of the stuff about the, I think we have to be realistic this idea. And some people again, it depends on your, on your sort of mindset. But the kind of this idea that you rent your home from the government and those kind of, I don't know. I mean, we all pay for services. And you know, the other thing that you decided this is, okay, so let's, we have to also think about the concept of property taxes being fair and equitable. So we all kind of feel the pain because you'll hear that. We'll have people call from. And I understand this. So let's say you're a senior. You live in Sun City, setting your line. I'm my kids graduated from school a long time ago. Why do I pay school taxes? It's a legitimate argument, but the reality of it is we want to try to spread the pain somewhat across, you know, we all pay for services. Now, we may hopefully our home never burns down, but we pay for the hope that if that ever happened that somebody's going to come and put the fire out. When you start to do these kinds of things when you start to pick and choose the winner. So let's say if you, if you say we're going to do it with property taxes for properties that are homesteaded, you and I were good. You know, I'm happy about that. But the reality of it is, I don't know what the argument for. Let's, if you start saying, you know, equal protection. Well, you know, I rent my home and they're passing an additional. You know, whatever the property taxes are into my rent, or if you own an investment property, well, you're still paying taxes. Well, why, you know, I own property and I'm being penalized because I don't own a homesteaded property. You know, and it's a tax shift at that point. And if you say, well, the cost of doing business as a government, you can cut some of it, but it's still going to be there. You know, what does that mean the government passes more fees and other, we don't talk enough about non-advalorem or non real estate fees and taxes you pay on your tax bill. So when you get your notes to propose taxes, you're looking at just the real estate portion of it. It doesn't include the cost of getting your garbage picked up every week. It doesn't, it doesn't include, you know, stormwater fees or gosh, we know about those things after the last storm last year. Yeah, all the other things. And those, you know, gosh, I don't know, I mean, what else are we paying for out there? Red light cameras, if you get caught, you pay all the above, you know, all the above, you know, people getting nickel didn't die by the local, you know, which frankly, if I went charge to take a good hard look at all of that stuff. But sure, a lot of those things are, and a lot of these things are passed by the local governments and no, and nobody even knows that they're raising those things, right. So they're going to try to find their money somewhere else. So do they start to increase those fees so you're still going to pay on the back end somewhere else. There's, there'll be a tax shift to some extent as well. And the funny thing is that it's interesting to me, people don't mind paying taxes for services if they believe that they're worthy. They just want to make sure that their money speed spent correctly. Right. So at the same time in the last election, clearly there was a message sent and we're living that message right now politically with the, you know, the outcome of the election. Thankfully, I'm still here. Thank you, voters. They sent a message, but at the same time in Hillsborough County that one message was being sent on one end, right. They they reinstituted one tax and created a new and increased tax for schools for teachers. So again, there's this kind of this dichotomy, which people have to kind of think through going forward about that. So it's, it's an interesting discussion. I hope that it's again that it can be more realistic in that folks. And there's a lot of smart people in the legislature that are wrestling with this on how to actually implement some of the ideas that are being put forward in a reasonable manner. Yeah. And that are practical on the long run. Well, I think the value exchange conversation is bigger now that ever was before. Like you said earlier about the person in Sun City Center that doesn't have children in the school system. Why should I pay for that? There's also the equity of in the equality of well, if you live in a $5 million house and I live in a $100,000 house, but we both have one car and we're sort of using the same services. You shouldn't be necessarily penalized a certain extent because you live in a more expensive house. Like you just have the equal millage, right. That's sort of how the tax collector has that equality amongst the tax tax base. Also too, you could even break it down to an individual association like a condominium building, right. Like the penthouse unit sometimes can pay as much as the smaller unit. Usually they might have like a, you know, this unit A pays this much unit B pays this much. But if it's one family living in there and that same family uses the pool just as much. You kind of always have to have that equality among the taxpayers. And if we comment, common elements are tax separately. Sure. And if you only had the people that used it pay, it wouldn't make economical sense to sustain those roads, those schools. Like I have young kids, I don't have kids in school. If I didn't pay, that's more someone else would have to pay. Right. And so you create the situation where it's so expensive. If we all could spread it out on a more even basis, that's what it is. That's what it is. That's, that's why it's, I guess I'll say tolerable or has been tolerable. I think the conversation is bubbling up now. Because the numbers are so much bigger than they will. They're as big as they've ever been. Well, and again, overall economic insecurity, you know, if you're paying $10 for a pound of ground beef and, you know, persistent inflation. And again, it's interesting that the word inflation is kind of a catch all, but remember the inflation is only the measure of how much the prices are increasing. Not once they've increased, they don't seem to come back down. I mean, gas prices still are persistently, you know, what they are. And so I think that that the incredible insurance increases, the property insurance increases we saw, which have maybe slowed down a little bit with some of the things the legislature's done, but they're still there. You know, the cost of energy, the cost of everything. And so, and taxes are the, you know, taxes the four letter word, there's a three letter word. It's an easy target, but it's a much larger kind of discussion. It's a good discussion to have for the state, though, as we grow, and now we have what 24 million people, Hillsborough County has like a million six. I mean, it's, it's a good time to talk about the fiscal responsibilities of the state and of the citizens and the tech and how it all interacts going forward. I think it's completely appropriate. How it shakes out. Well, yeah, absolutely. And interestingly enough, I think that along those lines, it's always important to have those discussions. But I think we have to be realistic to the cost of, you know, in the same way as each individual leave when we sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out. Can we take a vacation? Can we not, you know, how many how much grocery is when we build. It's different, but, but it's still somewhat the same the cost of doing business for government has gone up to. So we've got to factor that into some extent. And interestingly, I had a discussion with the mayor of Arizona panel with the mayor of Temple Terrace this week. And so when he's tried to look at certain things like he wanted to cut back garbage pick up like, you know, to once a week. And like the neighborhoods were like crazy. No way. Right. But it would have saved a lot of money for the city. And then ultimately they could have passed that on to the taxpayers. But no, no, we don't want that smell. We want it picked up twice. So you can't, to some extent, we've got to have. And so I think that's the very sober discussion needs to be. Yeah. Oh, we're going to have, we're going to have a certain level of spending. What are we spending on? Right. And so, yeah. So right now people are about. To me, and what I'm personally interested in is. You know, and I, by coaching background, what the blocking and tackling the nuts and bolts, the things that affect you on a daily basis that the pothole that's still there, that stuff they want to see the spending that's on the necess, you know, on the necessities. Any organization that, you know, I think that that's what that's what the taxing authorities would be the city of the county and others. And a lot of the discussion, they're really, they're, they're talking so much about the cities and the, and the counties remember taxing authorities. There's a much other taxing authorities out there. Like the port authority aviation authority, you know, school board. That all are part of this as well that need to be brought into that discussion. Absolutely. You mentioned you're a part of the Florida legislature. What's, what's your, and then you said you're a coach, your nicknames coach. What's your, how'd you get, how'd you become the property of praise? Talk to me about your sort of words. Well, my, my, my origin, I was born and raised here in fifth generation. And my great grandfather's last mayor of West Tampa became part of the city of Tampa in 1925, so 100 years ago. Ironically, I was a great grandfather. Okay. 100 years ago, the West Tampa became part of the city of Tampa. Temple Terrace was created. So there's the, it's interesting. Because in Lodell apart was a state senator as well. I was always fascinated with, with, you know, public service and politics. It was sort of in the family, although I was versus my family graduate from college. I went to Tampa Catholic and. Graduate from Princeton University. I was, I was at the end of my name. I could knock people down. So they, they, you know. And so, you know, but I always, I always had this great opportunity. I was blessed to go away. Came back. I always wanted to come back to this community and. Sort of led me over the course of time. I've, I've, I've always worked. You know, a real job. Both with Hillsborough County and the planning and growth management and the planning commission and then the private sector as well. And then I coached high school football, Tampa Catholic for many years and also extended Jefferson and others. So that's where the coach part of it came from. And. I actually had one of my boss in Hillsborough County. I was a can be one time and he said, I don't know if I should say this, but. He gave me a dollar and he said, I said, what's this for? And he said, well, this is your first campaign contribution. So I'm not running for anything Steve. And he said, you will. And, and so I put it in envelope and put campaign country. I put it in my drawer. And I actually was the first dollar ever deposited with another 99 dollars of my own dollars to start my first campaign. Whatever account. Interestingly, it was probably an illegal campaign contribution, but I think the, I think we're okay. But long story short, I had, I moved on, I was working with the builders associations, our government affairs coordinator and I had a gentleman come call me and say, I need to come in and talk to your name keeps popping up. You know everybody in town, you're. You know, you've got a great history here and that kind of thing and people, you know, and I want to talk to you about this, the state house race. And so he came in and here to literally I handed him a list of paper with a piece of paper with five mains on it. And I said, I'm glad you're here because I think all these five people would be great to run for that seat. And he looked at me like, you, you know, I'm here to talk to you about running. So that's really how it started. Call it where you at the top. This was 1997, 32, 33 years old. I guess. That's how it started. And I called. I called a good friend of mine, Anna Cruz, we all know. And who, you know, obviously was involved. And we could, we could about some, some over drinks one night when we were talking that. I was with her, her mother Janet and Bob by corn and some other people and they all said, you need to run for office someday. And I'm like, you know, whatever. And then. And then we were kid about well, I said, yeah, I'm going to run and when I do, you know, be my campaign manager. Right. And so she said, okay, she was, you know, 20s. And so I call her, I said, you know, this came to my attention. What do you think? And she goes, we come to the house. And we literally started that night. And I ran against an incumbent that that very well financed. And we were, we were fortunate enough to win in the rest of history. I was in the state legislature for eight years. I'm trying to limit it out. And from 1998, 2006, wow. Came back, worked in the private sector a bit. Then it was a, then was appointed by then governor Charlie Chris to department children and families worked there for a couple of years. Then it went, you know, then, you know, the great recession came along. There were some cuts in the state government. And I worked in the private sector and some other things for a while. And then the opportunity to run for property prazer came about some people called me and said, you should really do this. You have a history. My father, my brother had worked in the office many years. I knew a lot of the folks there. I had the background legislature. I had run. Been, you know, part of running a very large state agency with the department of children and families for past components county. So I kind of had that. It was the kind of the perfect mesh for me between. There's a political aspect every four years. But it's, it's, it's not partisan in nature. And it's more administrative. So it's about it's about running a good office. And being good storage of people's dollars and doing the right thing. And so it just it appealed to me and I rest this history I've been there ever since. And that ambition, right? I mean, because it's not necessarily an office where I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but you can do a whole lot in terms of policy in terms of like saving people money like we mentioned before. Sort of the powers of your office are administrative to assess property value, but I would imagine you had ambitions when you were running and you wanted to get in. And you said in the beginning that. Leaning out the office was sort of a part of your platform. Well, it more efficient. I think it was part practically and practically necessary because we when I when I came in we had somewhere between 25 and 30% of the office that was in drop. So the deferred retirement plan. So there was a generational change coming. And so we had we had to make a choice whether to try to hire a bunch of people. Or or get the folks before they left to kind of impart their knowledge to other folks. And but there was an opportunity for me it was about maximizing the human capital people we had there and then looking at other technologies and ways to reinvent the office. We had this the saying to rethink reinvent and reinvigorate the office. And I'd like to say I came over to my own, but it was on a bar soap and I liked it. So literally and that's and that's what we kind of did. So we looked at all the processes how we could apply technology cross training. And so instead of growing the size of the office we looked at and it organically it's just it's more difficult it was more difficult in the nature of the property praises office was becoming more technical more you know about using you know information technology and other technologies that are out there you mentioned AI of course there wasn't there yet. Unless you know hands on grunt work. And so we that's I think that's allowed us to do a lot of those kinds of things and that and looking at where where we could where it made sense to to do public private partnerships we have a number we were on the really on the bleeding edge of developing certain technologies that are now being used in other property praises offices throughout the throughout the country throughout the nation and the world actually we've had other countries visit us as well. And and and also to the extent that we could farm out you know certain functions whether it be administrative functions. And as well as you know our commercial team we largely have partnered with a private firm to do a lot of the information gathering and helping us put the numbers together so we because you really can't find the level of commercial appraiser to keep them long term and compensate them. And train them to level to do the kind of master praise and that in that in that. In that area that you could do in the past and so it's really thinking outside the box and reinventing you know government and to the extent of policy we we have been on the forefront of some policy changes that I think have been very very. Positive for property owners taxpayers because there is a handshake with legislature because everything we do is is enabled through the legislature. And to the extent that although I'm not in the policy realm sometimes I miss it every once in a while looking at cash out you know if I were still until I see I would do this or whatever it's kind of easy you know to from the outside looking in. Keep my hand in that in from time you know provide some some ideas but yeah it's it's it's it's been it's I'm blessed I am absolutely blessed and and you know we'll see what hopefully depending on what happens over a couple years I'll still be needed. Yeah 100% I mean I think that conversation about efficiency and in that office is relevant for two reasons one that the policy conversation right now about efficiency and you know Florida doge right and all these conversations about fiscal responsibility and government but also just the inflation like we talked about earlier I mean the pressure on Floridians is higher now than it ever was. Yeah sure it's in the office actually when you when you triangulate in the department of revenue keeps this statistic between the number of properties we have the five hundred seventy thousand properties the number of employees. And you you figure out the cost of you know per employee for each parcel or number one every year of the sixty seven counties and it's really safe your feet well yeah well I think it's it's and every year it's kind of a little thing between all of us property prazers like how do you you know how do you do that you know and so. And so we're probably we do we keep track of those kinds of how do you do that what do you attribute that to again I think the things that I spoke to yeah of of leveraging. You know you've been capital cross training so for example when I first came in and and we were coming out of the great recession and so the economy was starting to perk up the market was starting to to to to to heat up. So when I met with with all sort of our department heads and and the consistent theme was we've got a higher bunch of people right we've got a higher folks. But then I kind of looked at how siloed our office was and so for instance we had I institute this idea of customer service centric office which is more of a private sector term but. That we're all customer service right and so we had a particular group of people that were dedicated to do nothing but customer service well. The nature of our is very cyclical so right now with trim noses going out we get a lot of phone calls we get a lot of inquiries about different things. But the rest of the year then there's a period of time that that when people are filing before say March 1st when deadlines come up for filing for exemptions we get very busy when tax bills go out of November. But there's a certain amount of downtime where we're not necessarily getting a lot of customer service calls or folks that are offices are calling out it's more online or calls. These same people were answering questions about a wide range of things within the office so my thought was well if they have this idle time because there's not a customer sitting in front of them or they're not getting a phone call. Then why can't they be processing applications for home set exemptions given the fact they answer questions about home set exemptions they know how it works. So we that in that way and plus is going to give them a greater skill set and a lot of and so we have folks that were full customer service people that are now you know appraisers threes or senior appraisers that didn't have that career path originally. And so I think that's how we've been able to and the same time then that's the human capital side of it but then it's also looking at the processes and where we can apply. You know there was there was there was duplication of certain work so if you have a you have a certain thing if somebody pulls a permit to do something to put in a pool. And you know they're also let's say they're a green belt a piece of property and we and when I came in that you might have a situation where somebody would go out to plant city and review the property for their green belt application. And then you know two weeks later some of the different person would come out and look at their pool you know right over there. They could both do that you know the one trip instead of two a lot of that kind of stuff you know has has allowed us I think to become more modest in terms of our workforce. But our workforce is work very very hard they make me look good every day but the same time applying you know technology and different ways of doing business the last thing one here when I came in was we've always done it. Why are we doing that well we've always done it that way I want why we don't that way is it still makes sense 20 30 years later and that efficiency is why you've gone from I think you said 113 employees in 2013. 134 to under 100 under 100 I think actually active under 90 but we're we're we're in the process of hiring a few people so somewhere on 94. Let me ask you this so property appraiser and I'm sure the reason is the state legislature requires the position to be elected but why would that be an elected position which shouldn't that be like a staff position that is. And I think the answer to this and I asked the same question sure background is the legislature and otherwise you want the your property pressure to be an independent constitutional officer again so that there's no question in propriety. And this has gone on so say Miami day was the last of the counties to finally. Accept the elected property pressure they were they were sort of even they were still elected and still treated so they were an elected. Staff you know member. The reason being is that then there's no there's no question of a handshake between the level of assessment and you know it could go either way so depending say that if say the county commission if if if our budget was now it's a pass through to the county commission department of revenue looks at our budget. If if if the county commission was not happy with us or trying to put pressure one way or another and I'm not you know this is this is hypothetical in the abstract I'm not talking about any individual but let's say there's a particular. You know political bend one way the other particular thing that the people want to have happen could if if our budget was under them if I wasn't independent constitutional officer and and the people ultimately decided who the property pressure was. In theory the county commission could say hey we need your assessments to be lower you know or higher or even without saying if you're a staff member you're you're sort of like well I got to do it my boss is say kind of yeah. So that's that's the concept and that's why that we have the independent constitutional officers whether it be the supervisor of elections tax collector clerk of circuit court. Myself and the little sheriff as well state attorney others because that way there. To that way they are there's independence and there's no sense of impropriety that that we're sure you could be pressured one way the other and then in that same sort of. Project train what about the the county administrator. That could almost be a elected position where it's like the mayor of Hillsborough County and some and some you know municipalities and some have that sure you know my me they has a mayor and there have been efforts over the years to create a county mayor it's never it hasn't happened here. I haven't looked that deep into it but it seems like the way it works now is pretty efficient like you get that person who's the administrator who's just dialed in on. On on pushing for the policies of the director the operation and day to day and they're just dialed in time they get sideways with each other and that's sure there's the policy creeps in but I think that by and large it it. It works interesting yeah that makes sense to me yeah let's talk about storms let's talk about. What is it called the letters what's the acronym for you just you mentioned it DR 465 yeah but there's like there's an acronym for it what is it clear what does you say. I think was the DR 465 there's a there's a four letter word in regards to the letters. I'm not sure what that is that's I was the 465 down so I mean probably is so we had obviously we had the two storms last year. And so there's really a couple different there's a number of ways that we we interface with folks property owners as a result of that. And in FIP what did you say nip that's a national flood insurance program. That's yeah that's well that's again that's that's the 50% rule that's the female rule maybe that's what I'm thinking. That's what it was. Okay so well we'll get to let me be you know because I'm old and I'll lose my turn of thought but. So first of all last year we had the two storms and catastrophic events and in the state. Smartly in legislation now has passed it used to be that when I was there and then subsequent to that. If there was a catastrophic event a storm they would have to go in a special session and pass some legislation to kind of be able to help. So there's a lot of people you know the owners and the aftermath of the storm that wouldn't weren't covered by generally by legislation or you know protected. Now they've kind of codified a lot of those same things that they were doing every time they would have to go in there. So one of those things is you can get if you have a catastrophic event and it's a larger it's larger than just tropical storms or floods or tornado. Any catastrophic events so if your home burns down things like that because in theory because of the fact that our assessments are based on January first. If your home burns down on January second it used to be that that couldn't be taken on account until you're net till the following year even though you couldn't live there and. You know the home was in uninhabitable or whatever. Now it's covered under this the state statute that says if your home is uninhabitable for a period of 30 days during a particular year. So it's a pretty pro-rated tax refund for the period of time that you're out so we processed and are still processing a handful of well I think that the date that lines about to come up. I think it's September 14th at the date. What's that that's well okay that's well I was close and so we processed 3500 or so those great program and so people got some refund for the period of time that they were out. Is there a max is like cannot can I say oh I've been out three months or five months or well I depend well from the date of the storm. So the storm I don't remember the exact dates like here but say the storms were in October so up until January first you could be out of period of time. Wow some people were out 30 days on 60 and you have to give the identify I mean the information of how long you've been out and those kinds of things. So that was one thing we did they had like 20,000 in Pinellas County it's crazy. So that was part of what our what our charge last year to do going into this year was that the R465 the other portion is then to determine based on the amount of damage that a piece that a particular piece of property had based on the storms. January as of January 1st 2025 if they were still damaged to adjust their value based on that and that's been you know so hopefully if anybody's listening to this and for some reason they look their notes are proposed taxes. And they say whether there's you know our value is the same or gone up but we were either out of our home or it was substantially damaged and we didn't make an adjustment let us know we did the best we could to determine where those sure properties were. Based on FEMA information and a lot of other things and field work. But we you know it's not we you know there's a chance that we may have missed it here there we were getting handful of those calls. How can people get in touch with you in your office. Yeah they can call our office at 272 6100 go on our website you know the property risk website you have it up there so. C P F L dot org and you know I said it inquiry and say hey listen you know I looked at my nose proposed taxes and you didn't make an adjustment in my home is still you know I'm still not back in my home. Pull up that article David about those letters that went out in Hillsborough County because it was a lot right because I think Tampa Bay Times. Put up an article and they had a map and they put like where every letter went to is a significant amount of properties yeah and that and so that was a little bit different so there were letters that went out based on the. On the 50% rule and other things as well we said what we did is we did a. A bunch of different ways of out about to try to reach out to the community so they would know to get get in touch with us so we did everything from text messaging to cars. That we followed up with we both for the DR 465 for homes that we knew were uninhabitable as well as you know just in general homes that were damaged. You know we did everything we could social media different ways to try to reach out to folks as well I know that there were certain letters went out that weren't necessarily from ours that they were based more on the on the. Yeah and that's I mean again so we kind of use some of that data data now get now this specifically here this article that we have pulled up at least 10,000 properties receive letters saying they could have substantial damage this is not your office this is a. FEMA yes and I think the city or the county sent those out as well but your office is looking at this but we have that data sure yeah and so that gave us a pretty good idea of where. To send our cards as well and also we could piggyback off that to kind of get in some cases you know with the damage assessment that went on and we were. Part parcel of that going out with the FEMA teams after the storm to kind of know where the damage was and to be able to kind of estimate what what the damage is. We you know we also pick up permits so somebody had fixed their home and permitted it that's another trick by January 1st it wouldn't necessarily be reflected this year. You know that now we get then get into the 110% rule and other things that the state rule but. So so those people might receive bills that they need to contact your office and say hey my bill shouldn't be this high because I was out of my home and I had to do a renovation. Yes this tax bill 2025 if they receive their notes or proposed taxes and they take a look at it and in the adjustment doesn't isn't there or they think there should be one. They had damage we didn't know about it sure perhaps yeah by all means let us know we'll take a look if we have to send we just. Yesterday we sent out a couple of folks to take a look at the individual properties. Down some cases it may not rise to the level of or they may have you know but again I mean to some extent they have to document the damage sure but sure I mean we're not in the revenue business we're in a business of trying to get things right into that end. You know this thing called a value adjustment board process which people if they disagree with their assessment when we're the other or maybe an exemption that they believe they should have received that they didn't or one that we removed based on information that we have. Of those we may get it varies and low in 2800 up to 4,000 or so of those out of 570,000 properties in a giving year. We're going to take a second look at those things 88 5% of those those value of George but value adjustment board petitions. We're going to satisfy one way or the other we'll work with folks and either satisfy this is why we did it and they'll say okay that's okay or we'll make an adjustment. We're not you know I we don't win and lose that value adjustment board we try to work with folks again you know we we do the best that we can but I really it's important for folks to know. It should never be concerned about we've had people say well I don't want to call the prosecutors office because you know they're going to they're going to raise my assessment or they're we're not an adversary relationship we want to get it right and we want to answer your questions. There are certain times in which we the people may not accept the answer you know but we're going to work with folks as best we can because that's that's that's philosophically where I am and that's where our office should be. And so it says here in the article and again this is a letter that was set out by the federal government. Yes so specific to this it says recipients have told elected officials and passionate public testimony the assessments are wildly off and that's people that have damage and they want to fix their home but they're unable to because there's too much damage just hit the 50% That was more in Pinellas County that Hillsboro and we should tell people what the 50% rule is could you explain to people it's best I can because it's complicated but basically it says the FEMA rule and the point of this is over the course of time. The same kind of folks were you know this is nationally we're getting flooded or getting you know disproportionately impacted by storms and it's happening more and more often for whatever reason. And so the 50% rule I think was put in place to say okay at some point you know we can't go back and keep you know six times over the course of 20 years we've gone in and rebuilt the property the way it was before it it's not resilient I guess blown away again. So the 50% rule basically the reason for it is okay if you're if you're more than 50% destroyed than you're going to have to raise the property maybe raise it up or meet more current code requirements. So that hopefully next time that's more resilient when the storm comes through and you know anecdotally and if you look at what happened in Davis Island as a result of the storms. The properties that were newer you know that had been they were either rate that it were raised up or or had you know higher building standards really didn't have a lot of damage versus or proportionally to the ones that were the older homes that were at grade and we're flooded and those types of things. So that's what it is and to determine that 50% rule you can either use the property prazer's assessment. Or you can have a private appraiser to do an assessment of the value of the home. In most cases we've told folks that it's better to have the private appraiser probably was a good year less you'd be a private appraiser because they had a lot more work. Yeah, but clearly you know again based on the fact that our assessment is January 1st the storms happen in October or whatever it was. October and you know so the so the values changed in that period time plus our you know our values tend to be a fair amount lower than then then what a fee appraiser private appraiser would come up with if you're trying to figure out what 50% is so that's that's our handshaker that are part of that sure and it sort of makes sense right like you know all these homes that were built in the 60s and 70s especially I mean in our community in South Tampa and even on the panel side. You know they were built below the floodplain at that time and those are the homes that over the course of decades should have some sort of incentive to build new. The problem is the elderly person that's lived there a long time the person that doesn't have the means to rebuild that's where it gets really tricky right. Well the worst scenario and I don't know how these rules and policies play effect in areas that are not in flood zones but the worst scenario in this happened all across Hillsborough County and the city and panelists are so that issues where you've got these properties outside of the floodplain and X flood zone people don't you know they're not required by their mortgage to have flood insurance and yet they had flooding. Because of the rain and the all of that sort of stuff knows why it's spread areas that we would never expect never a forest tells for the pumps failed or out of that city. Do those rules apply to those homes as well how does that work if you're not living in a flood zone. Well now if you're not if you're not part of the flood insurance program they would then then you're not that's not applicable to you and then also to I guess the concern for people is well damn if I like you know I live in Beach Park. Okay and I this is hypothetical I I own this amazing lot I've owned it for 20 years it's paid off and I've got this letter that says I need to build my home up or brand new. Well that's super expensive and if I build this you know million and a half dollar home on this lot I own in Beach Park. The property purchase is going to say this is worth three million dollars and then my tax bill is going to be thirty five thousand dollars a year right. So that's that's where the hundred percent rule which now we'll go to a hundred thirty percent by based on the legislation that the that was past last year. What that says is that you can rebuild up to a hundred ten percent of your original square footage without it changing your assess value that's magic I that that's great policy it is good policy. And what we've what we did here there's some different interpretations from various property praises across the state. But what we said was we don't want to penalize folks so if you if you build up and you don't finish out so you just have basically an open air car port underneath the home right it's not finished we're not going to count that against a hundred ten percent. You know rules that gives you more latitude as far as that goes that's thousands of square feet typically and also very typical for that that building style. On Davis islands and and areas flown to prone to flooding you know they always build up with the garage underneath so that's huge and now it's going to go to a hundred thirty percent if it passes or it's our past. I want to say Senate bill 180 I believe and also had some other protections against local communities passing things that that would that were distance and it's for the property owners to rebuild or you know whatever. Well that's I think that's great I think one of the big fears in the conversation at the time and I think you even were answering some questions regarding this was I want to build new but I'm afraid of that new tax bill. So this is this is to mitigate that and it's a hundred and thirty percent so if you're a hundred and thirty one percent you are assessed at well you'd be you it's based on the on the savor homes cap right so you're. Anything past that 110 now or this coming coming up 130 percent. That the other stuff would be here that the portion that you repair the repair to replaced up to 110 percent as a result of storms or now 130 percent. That would be that would stay under the cap okay it wouldn't affect your assessed value. Now anything over the top of that is the same as if you added a if you today when in your home is twenty four hundred square feet and you added five hundred square foot addition. That's that's new construction that's going to go on top of the cap in the first year they get rolled in so that you know so if you 131 that one percent over the top of it that's going is going to that's probably too little but sure so if you had a twenty five hundred square foot home. That's the previous to the catastrophic event and you rebuild twenty you know five hundred plus thirty percent whatever that may be and then you say you know as long as I'm at it I'm going to go ahead and add another six hundred square feet that six hundred square feet would go on would be additional new construction that would be added at the market rate whatever that is. In the previous amount would stay under the save our homes on the cap got it yeah so different than today if you had an addition it's going to it's going to be in that first year it's going to be valued at you know at market rate and then rolled into the cap after that. The Senate bill 180 is really buzzing right now there's so many things in here that obviously are not necessarily applicable to your office but certainly real estate certainly development and we'll see how it all shakes out I think probably local governments are are looking at this all run Florida trying to figure out a way to dice it up I think it's meant to have regulations regarding emergencies and make it a little easier and give people more incentive to build where they are right and. Make their properties more resilient but I think there's also some ambiguous nature to the language of the policy that has local government like whoa wait a second right like this might not apply strictly to emergencies yeah well ambiguous nature to legislative language is nothing new. And so you know before the train leaves the station sometimes things get added in so I really again we've only really focused on the portion that affects the property praises office but you know that's the nature of the beast until I see that's the nature of the beast let me let me wrap up with with with these sort of questions about just Tampa in general so your you said your fifth generation your your great grandfather was the last mayor of West Tampa. Yeah his name is a recap he was the 19th January 1st 1925 there was a ceremony at the El Pasaje hotel and he bore city and West Tampa became part of the city of Tampa were you fortunate enough to grow up with him and talk to him I'm old care but I'm not that old. Well you said he was mayor in 1925 yeah I'm not sure he's actually here but that he was he passed I think in the late 30s early 40s early 40s okay I was fortunate enough to grow up with my great-grandma. And she she was older but I she died I think when I was 11 or 12 so I had I have some memories with her but you probably talk to your father grandfather about him and yeah there's a lot of stories. You know and not just him but I mean there's a lot of folks that know a lot of the history of West Tampa yeah. He sat down with E.J. South Sinus for a while you know he was on the show oh my gosh you can have an hour conversation one five minutes we could have 10 you could have an entire podcast. He's just a treasure and so you know but I I kid because I'm a product of a mixed marriage my mother was from E. B. or city and my father from West Tampa which was that you know that was like the you know the whatever the Romulets of the capula capula whatever was that's like you know it was a big deal if you cross the river it was kind of scandalous back in the day but so you know my roots are deep I mean I love this community I love the city and certainly you've seen a lot of change and for sure. You know some of the better some of it different you know I come from an era when you only put black beans on white rice you know that was that was for us that was culture you know. But you know see it's it's it's balancing you know and I have this discussion recently with someone I think that in and you know our former mayor Bob Bukhorn is a fond of saying that you've had it on the on the show. You know that we that we were losing our best and brightest to wherever rally Durham and in Charlotte all that. We know we're not necessarily losing those folks you know in fact we are attracting a lot of folks which I think is a good thing. But I think we have to be mindful that the reasons that in the spirit of this community and what makes it so special what attracts people here. We don't want those folks to come here and I want to turn it into where they came from you know agreed and you know because your legacy you know family. And so how do we balance that yeah you know how do we balance that the you know the changes that we see downtown water street and all that kind of really neat urbanization and all that with the spirit makes this such a great community the welcoming sense that you can be here five days and feel like you've been here five months. And you know and at the same time balance the needs of the neighborhoods and the needs of you know of people versus the shiny objects you know right it's it's tough. And hopefully bucks one a few games well it yeah I mean it's looking good so far but it's it I think it is a tightrope and it's certainly my greatest fear is that as we grow and develop and we attract people from Charlotte and the northeast. And out west here they they don't know the history they don't know the stories of our ancestors and then I wake up one day with my children and your grandchildren like what is this Orlando 2.0 like what what are we right so bringing along with us the stories of the past and the culture we have here in Tampa is I think the most important thing as we grow. And it's and it's tricky and it's difficult it is because we don't we don't want to be one Tampa to be just you know like the you know the print you have behind you are some some in some museum piece you know or or you know if you go to some places out in the west and they have a small little section that's like the Wild West town you know I don't you know that it's come part mentalized or that it's just this like Disney World fake version of what once was and I don't think anyone wants that I forgot to ask you something about some of these larger developments how do you put a value on something like water street. Well I mean again you try to find similar things I mean now if to the extent that something's a brand new you know we can we'll look at other areas or other places that have something similar yeah you know. So hard to find though right it's hard to find but to the extent that like the if it's if it's town homes are residential you know the time look you know based on. Downtown or square foot most kinds of things and we have enough of that now that we have something to go on here right was that because that's you've been in office since 2013 that whole project transpired yeah while you were in office is that something when you first heard of it the concept you and your team are like okay how are we going to crack this thing. We actually now in some case we met with folks we we open ourselves up to meet with with developers of midtown development. Oh to compare and compare try to get some idea again we're not we couldn't forecast what they were going to be worth sure but in some cases those kinds of developments developers will come in. You know as part of their performer they're going to want to sit down and say what it you know what does this look like we can't necessarily predict exactly what the tax or your what their assessments and ultimately their taxes are going to be. So we to the extent that we can we you know we've got some pretty bright folks that are able to look at those kinds of things again to be prepared for it. Again remember nothing things don't go on the tax roll until their quotes substantially complete which is really CO. And so we have time to kind of figure things out and that's the other thing the people don't understand is people say well there's all these cranes downtown all this development. From the standpoint of the tax authorities they are not actually going to crew that revenue until it's complete. So the people that say look at all the growth look at the cranes where's the money to fix this well you got to give it a few years and that's the other tricky part because we're historians to some extent so we can never quite catch up to. You know the you know the growth and then when things go bad fortunately I haven't had that experience although this year was flat. Because so you would so if you're if the economy goes in the tank it's a good word I want you to know the word over the course of time so let's say back 2007 2008 whatever the great recession started. You get your tax bill based on the value to January 1st of 2025 and your home is worth $750,000. Let's say I'm this hopefully isn't sometime between now and January you know the economy we have something terrible God forbid. And now your value as of January 1st you know you can't the tax bill for that year you're going to pay based on January 1st although you lost value throughout 2025. You never quite catch up to downturns and and think when things are really going well we don't this doesn't necessarily reflect you know everything all at once it's it's kind of that's that's the nature of our being historians for lack of a better term. Yeah but this in their programs and maybe it's through the tax collector's office where you can sort of anticipate what your tax bill will be and pay in quarterly to help believe you have certain pressure. Yeah they have certain certain ways that you can then you've got the discount to pay in November and we have a tax estimator on our website so folks can take a look at that. That's a big one and get and get a sense for what it won't be exact now if you're if you're in the real estate business or you're an individual and you want to know a closer. Sure. At least the property portion of your taxes may be not the out of the alarm part you know you can call us and we'll look at it more closely but generally that that estimator is going to give you an estimate based on 85 to 100% of the sale price. I would always say estimate go only on the high end of that it shouldn't it wouldn't be as high as that for those purposes but yeah the estimator can be a good tool for folks. What's what's a good like little formula you know because it residential brokers use that a lot and I know it's hard to say yeah but you know one and a half percent something like that of the sale price of the property maybe gives you. Hail Mary into the area of where it could be million dollars is $15,000 something like that but working people find the property tax estimator on our website there's a drop down menu let me shout that out because it's a cool it's a cool so if you look it's it's it's here on the quick links it's it's it's in various different places but if you go down here to the tax estimator it's quick links it's on the left side of the home page. And so boom you can put in the parcel number owner number identifying information the owner's name address it's going to give you then now there's some little language up here people need to read right before they 100% rely on this of course it's just and that and that basically is saying you know this is an estimate if you need something close or let us know it also is going to say doesn't include all of those non add the lorum things so because we'll get calls when the tax bills come in November and say wait a minute your trim note has said my you know my taxes this year we're going to be. $4,000 and I got my bill it was 5,000 well you know you didn't take into account all those other fees you know waste water storm water you know you know garbage pickup all those other things that taxi authorities or or not tax authorities but the municipalities or the county may put on on top of your tax bill and those can be tricky and those have risen quite a bit over the course of time sure so property tax estimator on the website and you also said something about a more detailed analysis can be given if you reach out. Yeah if you reach out we can take a closer look and issue a letter again it's not going to be exact but it may be a little bit closer than the tax estimator. Very cool listen I appreciate you coming on today this was fun this video is great too by the way so you guys in your office have done this video about what your offices and what you do. Why don't we play the whole video from the beginning because it's good it's only a minute long. Because we can't you want to think about property taxes you're killing us. Time out time out bring it in bring it in listen it's important to understand what the property appraiser's office does and doesn't do. All the property appraiser's office does is to assess the value of your home based on the market and in the Tampa Bay area the market's but skyrocketing. We don't even call the placement comes to your taxes that's the local lawmakers we don't even collect taxes in our office. Why don't we suppose to do first file your home set exemption if you're a veteran first responder senior and many many others may qualify for additional exemptions. But my assessment was too damn high. Well did you ask for review from us. I fumbled that last year. Every August you're going to get a letter from us if there are any issues you can give us a call. Now I need for you to go to the website and study the property tax playbook bring it in let's go. Think I'm in the wrong locker room but great info. Oh yeah we had a lot of fun with that you know again. You can look at however you want but I think that one of the things that I said coming in when we were kind of antiquated in the way we thought about communicating when I first came in the office. People want to be communicated with however they best want to communicate these days so there are people out there that never want to see another human be the rest of their life. But you know they'll so they'll go on our chat bot right or go online. There's some people that still want to do it the old fashioned way that want to sit in front of somebody and and have them type their application for them. You know so I thought let's do something a little bit different. I mean I can do a video in which I'm you know looking into the camera and saying the property appraisers office does this. You know and people don't really pay attention so we thought we'd do something kind of different. You know playing off of certainly my my background and get it people's attention a little bit it may be explained a little bit more about what we do or make them a little bit more interested in finding out what it is we do and how they can contact us. So we had some fun with it and so far so good it's it's had for the most part you know a good reaction some people are like you know where no it's great it's great. I mean the point of it is great to like look don't complain get on get on here and get the information and reach out. Hit them up people. There you go please do all right thanks again for coming on my pleasure this was great I've been looking forward to it and we've. Want to do this for a while and you know before to do it again the future I appreciate what you're doing because it means a lot. To have folks like yourself that are first of all you know I hate to say it but you're you know that you are the future of our community and and the fact that you're interested and that you want to give back and that you want to provide information and get involved. That's so important I look back at you know when I was your age and that's again going back to the genesis of how I got into public service it was about giving back was the politics of it wasn't for my ego wasn't that it was. Really because I care about the community and you do the same and so this is a great thing that you're doing well thank you and I think that feeling has only grown inside me I mean I sort of I was born here and you. You know everyone loves the neighborhood they live in for the most part cares about it to a certain extent but as I've done business in this community and you know now I have a wife and two kids and that feeling of of creating a better community only grow stronger so that's certainly true for me but thank you for that thank you all right by neck by everybody see you next week take care bye.