Assessor

HOW TO APPLY: Applicants must submit an original Civil Service “Application for Employment and/or Examination” to Schuyler County Civil Service Office at 105 Ninth St., Unit 21, Watkins Glen, NY 14891. Faxed or emailed applications will be accepted.

VACANCY: At the present time, there is one full-time (35 hours/week) opening in the Schuyler County Real Property Tax office. The person hired will need to take a Civil Service test at a later date and be reachable on the list to gain permanency in the position.

RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT: Candidates must have been legal residents of Schuyler or a contiguous (Chemung, Seneca, Steuben, Tompkins and Yates) county for at least one month immediately preceding the date of the written examination. Preference in appointment may be given to a resident of the jurisdiction for which there is a vacancy.

JOB DESCRIPTION: Manages the annual valuation of each parcel of real property for ad valorem tax purposes pursuant to the county's initiative to provide assessing services to municipalities. The employee must be able to exercise great discretion and independent judgement when setting assessments and making determinations regarding taxpayers’ eligibility to receive real property tax exemptions. Does related work as required.

TYPICAL WORK ACTIVITIES: Reviews and makes determinations with respect to applications for tax exemptions; Supervises and trains staff in the area of assessment administration; Utilizes and maintains current tax maps and appraisal cards; Designs and implements a public information program to serve as an educational tool for taxpayers and to provide direct response to taxpayer inquiries; Prepares reports of assessment activities as required by the appointing authority or the State Board of Real Property Services; Oversees and approves the work of third party, contractual professional appraisers as needed; Receives complaints filed and transmits them to the Board of Assessment Review; Attends the public examination of the tentative assessment roll at times prescribed by law; Attends all hearings of the Board of Assessment Review; Makes changes in assessments in accordance with law as directed by the Board of Assessment Review; Provides school districts within the assessing unit a copy of the current pertinent portion of the assessment roll.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Either:

• Graduation from high school, or possession of an accredited high school equivalency diploma and two years of satisfactory full-time paid experience in an occupation involving the valuation of real property, such as assessor, appraiser, valuation data manager, real property appraisal aide or the like. Such experience shall be deemed satisfactory if it is demonstrated that the experience primarily was gained in the performance of one or more of the following tasks: collection and recording of property inventory data, preparation of comparable sales analysis reports, preparation of signed valuation or appraisal estimates or reports using cost, income, or market data approaches to value. It shall be the responsibility of the appointee to provide detailed and verified documentation of such experience, including work schedules and samples of finished products. Mere listing of real property for potential sale, or preparation of asking prices for real estate for potential sale, using multiple listing reports or other published asking prices is not qualifying experience; or
• Graduation from an accredited two-year college and one year of the experience described in (A) above; or
• Graduation from an accredited four-year college and six months of experience as specified in (A) above or graduation from an accredited four-year college and a written commitment from the county Real Property Tax Director that the county will provide training in assessment administration, approved by the State Board, within a six-month period; or
• Certification by the State Board as a candidate for assessor.
  
  

In evaluating the experience described in (A) above, the following conditions shall apply:

• If the assessor has been previously certified by the State Board as a Candidate for Assessor pursuant to Subpart 188-3 of the Rules for Real Property Tax Administration, such certification is equivalent to one year of the experience described in (a) above, if the certification has not expired.
• For the purpose of crediting full-time paid experience, a thirty-hour week shall be deemed as fulltime employment.
• Three years of part-time paid experience as Sole Assessor or as Chairman of a Board of Assessors shall be credited as one year of full-time paid experience, and five years of part-time paid experience as a member of a Board of Assessors shall be credited as one year of full-time paid experience. Paid part-time experience in excess of these amounts shall be credited in accordance with these criteria.
• Volunteer experience in an Assessor’s Office may be credited as paid experience to the extent that it includes tasks such as data collection; calculation of value estimates; preparation of preliminary valuation reports; providing routine assessment information to a computer center; public relations; and review of value estimates, computer output and exemption applications.
• In no case shall less than six months of the experience specified in (A) above be acceptable with the exception of county training as provided for in option (C) above.