Patrick Sullivan, West Hartford’s Assessor and Connecticut Assessor of the Year

Congratulations on being named Assessor of the Year by the Connecticut Association of Assessing Offices Inc. How does one become an assessor? What special experience is required to become one?

Many assessors have backgrounds in real estate related fields. To become a certified Connecticut municipal assessor one must work in an assessor’s office for a minimum of three years, successfully take a series of assessment classes, and receive a passing grade on the comprehensive CCMA exam. 

You were recognized for creating a time-saving software for assigning values on residential and commercial trailers. What compelled you to create this software? Was your former employer, the Town of Vernon, losing money on trailer assessments?

One objective of our association, the Connecticut Association of Assessment Officers (CAAO), is to annually uniformly value all the motor vehicles registered in the state of Connecticut.  Lawrence Lebel, from the Town of Manchester assessor’s office, and I decided to work on this project to enable members of our association to accurately identify and uniformly value various types of trailers.  It was previously very frustrating and very time consuming to try to accurately identify and value them.  Since the program can help assessors more accurately identify these classes of vehicles, towns may realize a modest increase in assessment in this area of the grand list.

Why give this software away? Isn’t there some commercial potential from software like this across the country?

People volunteer for many positions and projects. We simply wanted to help our fellow assessors with a pain staking task that has a very modest impact on the overall grand list. We designed the program to benefit the CAAO. There are very few states that tax motor vehicles similarly to Connecticut that may have an interest in this software.

Has the role of assessor become totally dependent on software? How much assessment still comes from eyeball inspections?

The assessor is responsible to discover, list, and value all the property in his or her municipality. 

This process still requires a tremendous amount of fieldwork. The various software programs that we use enable us to perform these responsibilities in a more efficient and uniform manner. 

What changes do you see coming in assessments in Connecticut? Are there technological advances coming that will maybe change the frequency of assessments?

We already value motor vehicles and business personal property annually. We presently conduct revaluations to revalue the real estate every five years. These mandates are a function of Connecticut state statute. In the past, changes in the economy have prompted elected officials to change the frequency of revaluations, not technological advances.  For many years, towns were obligated to perform a revaluation every 10 years. The downturn in the real estate market in the 1980’s and early 1990’s prompted officials to change legislation to require municipalities to implement a revaluation once every four years. They have subsequently adjusted this to a five-year schedule.