Trustees and Managers Respond to Questions about 2016 Revaluation

The Village Board sought to appease disgruntled residents at a special meeting on Monday night June 27 to update residents on the status of the 2016 revaluation and grievance process.

Mayor Jon Mark said, "We are aware of the anger and frustration of many residents of the results of the revaluation. Trustee Jane Veron and I attended a portion of the Board of Assessment Review proceedings and saw an orderly process conducted in a civil matter. Residents were allowed to state their case .... and the BAR treated all with respect."

To those who called for the Village to invalidate the new assessments, Mark said, "We are not presently considering voiding the model. We have no independent basis for doing this. The only way to fix this is to do a 2017 reassessment."

He also noted that almost 82% of residents have not contested their assessments, saying, "We are cognizant of the silent majority who have not grieved and effectively accepted the results of this revaluation."

According to the Mayor 1,050 grievances were filed, representing 18.4% of taxable properties in the Village of Scarsdale. The Board of Assessment Review met on June 14, June 23 and will hold additional meetings on June 29 July 1 to allow everyone who wishes to be heard to have a hearing. The BAR will review grievances during the summer and the Mayor said that appraisals can be submitted until September 1, but its preferable to get them in earlier to give the board time to consider the data.

Deputy Village Assessor Patrick McEvily said that 193 people were scheduled to have hearings before the BAR. He said that the BAR will mail out decisions on the grievances on September 15 and that those who are unhappy with the results can file a small claims review (SCARS) between September 15 and October 17.

In response to those who questioned John Ryan's credentials and the Village's process for selecting him, Village Manager Steve Pappalardo shared the following:

Ryan was selected based on the completeness of his proposal and the qualifications of his staff during the process to select a firm to audit the 2014 revaluation. Only two responses were received.

Ryan has 30 years of experience in mass appraisal and holds the Certified Assessment Evaluator (CAE) designation and is licensed as a certified general appraiser in several states. He provides expert witness testimony on matters of property assessment and mass appraisal modeling.

Pappalardo said that an FAQ sheet with answers to more questions as well as charts analyzing the outcome of the revaluation can be found on the village website. An analysis of the data, can be viewed here: 

At the meeting, critics continued to express outrage, concern and anger.

Josh Frankel questioned the model formula for square footage of a home, which he said, "Values an 8,000 square foot home at only twice the price of a 2,000 square foot home ...four times as large at twice the price... I believe this is a bug."

He also questioned the number of sales that were not used in the model and claimed that too many were invalidated, or thrown out of the equation. He questioned why the reasons these sales were invalidated were not available.

Brice Kirkendall Rodriguez continued to question the validity of J.F. Ryan's model. He said he believes that Ryan manipulated 16 construction grades to correct the model. He said that when some of the grievers receive reductions, these will raise the taxes for everyone else and told the Mayor that even "more people will be unhappy." He asked the Village to retain an independent auditor.

Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez repeated many of the points she made at the prior meeting asking the Village to retain an independent auditor to back test the model. She claimed that her group had "uncovered many flaws in the model," including questionable assumptions that had not been vetted. She asked why this second reval had been done, why the results were late and why no one had validated the data. She said, "Was there willful blindness?"

She said that her group uncovered information that showed that other municipalities have had trouble with Ryan's work. She claimed that in Rockingham, Vermont Ryan's assessment was "riddled with inaccuracies and mistakes," and in Westport, CT the town won a one-year delay from the state to cope with irregularities and errors."

She chided the Board saying, "You may claim that you had the best intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You certainly have unleashed living hell on many of us..." She then turned to the audience and said, "Fellow Scarsdalians, I urge you not to let the disgust and revulsion over what is happening lead you to inaction. .... Unfortunately village personnel and elected officials have chosen to abandon us. But, by no means, will my team and I relent in our quest to get this travesty of a revaluation overturned. Please join us, in our pursuit to restore order and decency, in our much beloved Scarsdale."

Lee Fishman suggested that the Village convene a standing committee to explain to residents how their valuations were done. He said, "When you switch a model, results will vary and can really whipsaw the valuation. If Ryan intended to correct outliers why were all assessments revised? The model should have been made fully public. Maybe we would have had fewer problems if it were revealed. ...Was there any consideration given to providing a year over year break for those than changed dramatically?"

Bernard Kobroff asked, "How will the assessor defend this?"

Norm Rosenzweig said, "It is questionable whether the model meets New York State standards. If it is not qualified can't it be voided?"

Another woman in the audience yelled out, "Why are we here if there's nothing you can do? Why don't you just tell us to go home."

Mayor Mark replied, saying "I thought it would be good to listen to you and explain.
There seems to be the impression that we can just toss this thing out and we are unable to do that."

Howard Weitz said, "I would like to suggest a different approach. Has Ryan complied with his contract? Did his people drive by all the homes in the Village? Perhaps we can question his performance and also charge that he had a conflict of interest as he was the monitor of Tyler, just a short time ago? He suggested that there was a breach of contract, and urged the Village attorney to take the matter away from real property law.

Sherry Berkowitz of Ross Road said "I was one of the lucky ones whose tax assessment went up 62%. She asked, "Why were we not given the opportunity to speak with Ryan? Why were we not given the same courtesy the second time around?" She wanted to know if the trustees plan to continue to do revaluations, saying "I will need to have money ready."

Bob Harrison, who was a former trustee questioned the need for the revaluation and said his petition to void the revaluation has 440 signatures on Change.org. He demanded, "Are you going to force us to bring a class action suit?" He said that Dorothy Finger had recused herself from the Board of Assessment Review and called for her resignation so that she could be replaced.

Mayor Mark explained that training was necessary before serving on the committee so that the trustees could not simply name a substitute.

Trustee Carl Finger said, "I think it is worth taking a moment to address the idea of how we feel. When I got on the board last year, they had already taken this step. Some questioned the second reval. Was it appropriate? I said at the time, the board that decided to do the first reval was in the best position to decide on the second reval. On many nights we heard people who were unhappy with the results from the first reval. It is difficult to see the community in such distress. I did not anticipate seeing so many unhappy people. We are listening to you and looking at what we can do better in the future. We are aware that there are things we can do better in the future. We are not in a position to do what you like. We are going to try to look at what we will do moving forward. We are all very distressed – and wish we could assess everyone at a fair value that they believe is right."