7QUESTIONS+PLUS

Rocco Vita serves a unique purpose in Kenosha County. He works with the residents of Pleasant Prairie, Salem, Twin Lakes, Randall and Brighton as the assessor for these municipalities. He says this innovative community partnership allows us to provide effective assessment services more efficiently. Vito says he has very little free time, and the best advice he has been given is “With as much ease as we come into this world with traits of honesty, integrity, and credibility - once you lose them, they’re just as difficult to regain.”

Rocco Vita will now take your questions ...

What is the hardest part about your job? What is the easiest? Having the right people in place makes everything easier. We have a well-educated assessment staff with many years of experience, so most aspects of our operation run very smoothly. One challenging task is scheduling annual appeal hearings for all five communities over a condensed period of time. The schedule must accommodate the public, Board of Review members and affected municipal employees, while adhering to multiple, overlapping legal deadlines and timeframes.

Why do assessments continually increase?
Over time, real estate values increase. And because property assessments are required to represent current real estate value, they follow suit and increase proportionately, even though property taxes don't always do the same.

Most people recognize that Wisconsin's real estate market has been very healthy from 1988 to 2005. This was especially true throughout Kenosha County because of the many good "quality of life" factors we enjoy, as well as our proximity to both Milwaukee and Chicago. The demand for homes was greater than the supply. This placed upward pressure on home prices as competing buyers vied for available property. This trend holds true, even over longer periods of time; for example, a home that sold for $16,500 during 1962 would undoubtedly sell for much more today.

If the assessment of my home increases/

decreases, would I automatically pay more/less in property taxes? Why? There are many variables, relationships and formulated assumptions involved in the cause and effect relationship between individual property assessments and tax bills. No one easily explained answer exists that will represent everyone's individual situation. Here is a very general explanation, but it will not answer every situation.

The key relationship is between the percent of change for any one property value relative to the total change of the community as a whole. If a single property value increases 15 percent and the value of the entire municipality also increased 15 percent and the total amount of taxes to be collected (the tax levy) remains the same, then the resultant property tax would remain the same. But, if the single property value increased 12 percent while the total municipal value increased 15 percent, then the resultant property tax would actually go down. The reverse is also true; if a single property value increased (as a percentage) more than the total percent increase of the municipality then the property tax would increase.

The complicating factor is the final tax levy, which involves six individual taxing authorities: Kenosha County, the municipality (city/town/village), your school district, Gateway Technical College, the Library System, and the State. Each taxing authority has their own, individual budgeting process, and each has different sources of revenue, such as State and other financial aid, that changes from year to year. A clear and definite tax levy and tax rate cannot be determined until the final weeks of November, just before the printing and mailing of tax bills, and 4 to 6 months after assessment notices are mailed to property owners.

Reassessments seem to be done once every two years or so - why not wait five or 10 years? Because property values in the same municipality change at different rates (based on location and several other factors), reassessing every two years ensures a more accurate measure of that change. If you wait five to 10 years between revaluations in a community where the rates of change are so variable, a greater or unfair portion of the burden falls on those properties whose value increased at a slower pace. In short, the longer the time between reassessments in a diverse community, the more eroded tax equity and fairness becomes.

Why does challenging an assessment seem fruitless? This is a good question and my response might surprise you. During the past year, we completed a revaluation for the town of Salem. We mailed 6,535 notices of changed assessment and received inquiries for 299 properties during the three-week "open book" period. Seventy-six adjustments to the original assessments were made. One out of four, or 25 percent, of the people who contacted our office were able to provide us with valid information that led us to change their value. The appeal process is an important, necessary step, and those property owners in Salem clearly found it worthwhile.

What is the strangest request you have received from a homeowner? Since 1982, I've been involved with about 126 municipal revaluations, and the vast majority of interactions are ordinary and unremarkable. Though contrary to what most might expect, it's not uncommon for property owners who are selling their home to contact us and suggest their assessment is a little low and request a closer look.

If there was one thing you would change about the assessment process, what would it be?
Wisconsin's assessment process is 160 years old and over those years some significant changes have taken place. The laws and procedures governing it are well documented by an entire chapter of State statues and a three-volume property assessment manual published by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. While the assessment process may not be 100 percent perfect, it's not broken either. The real concern for most residents doesn't rest with the assessment process, but with the process of attaching a tax to their property value in order to support education and local and county services. Most people who talk with me about their assessment admit the assessed value isn't their issue; it's their property tax bill.

With the decrease in property values, will assessments go down as well? Here, the key point is whether sale prices are below assessed values. There is clear evidence that the number of property sales has decreased during 2006 and 2007 from their all-time highs during 2003 through 2005. However, the latest report I've seen from the Wisconsin Realtors Association states that overall sale prices have gone up 5 percent during 2006 and another 2.5 percent during 2007. Appreciation isn't nearly as strong as it was between 2002 and 2005 when overall increases were in the 6 percent to 8 percent per year range, but overall erosion of property value hasn't taken place. If a predominant number of sales in a neighborhood were to occur for less than their assessed values and the community was about to undergo a revaluation, then it would be likely that the assessed values of that neighborhood would decrease.

If you were from out of the area, would you buy a house in Pleasant Prairie knowing the current housing market? Absolutely! Long, long ago, when I was working for the city of Waukesha, someone told me the time to buy real estate is today. Thinking back, those words are just as fitting now as they were back then. There have been very few periods through history in which real estate values have declined appreciably and one of the benefits of home ownership is the gradual appreciation over time with proper and regular maintenance. But a home shouldn't be considered a financial investment, there are too many other investment opportunities that return more with less cost and are more liquid. A home is an investment in your quality of life. It provides pride of ownership, freedom to express one's self, a place to raise a family, a degree of privacy, and the ability to live in the environment of your choosing. Whether in Pleasant Prairie with its many amenities or any other community in Kenosha County, each with their own identity and benefits, home ownership is advantageous.

What's the best advice you have ever been given? With as much ease as we come into this world with traits of honesty, integrity, and credibility - once you lose them, they're just as difficult to regain.

What do you do in your free time? Free time? Good grief, I can only say I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Who inspires you? Similar to my eclectic taste in music, books, entertainment and food, there isn't any singular or specific person I can point to. Throughout history there have been many great figures of worldly recognition that I've read and learned about as well as those I've encountered. In my life, when I find I'm impressed by specific traits of people I admire, traits I perceive to benefit myself as well as those I interact with, I think about importing and keeping a piece of their trait in my own bag of traits. Some I lose along the way, and some I've kept to this day, but in the end, I, like you, are a composite of those who've inspired us.

With tax season here, what are your words of wisdom for taxpayers? Enjoy your home and family, use the amenities available to you in your community, and always take stock of your good fortune.