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| Stafford is one of the fastest growing counties in the country. | |||
New CAMA system benefits Stafford County
Stafford is a dynamic and growing county that boasts a long and storied history. Captain John Smith was one of the first to explore Stafford and map its rivers in 1609. Legend has it that George Washington chopped down his father’s cherry tree on the bank of the Rappahannock River in Stafford County.
Today, Stafford has become one of the fastest growing counties in the country, consistently ranking in the top 10 nationally in growth rate. This rampant growth has presented the county’s appraisal staff with many challenges. The Real Estate Department of the Commissioner of the Revenue’s office consists of 19 employees and conducts countywide reassessments every two years.
Early in 2000 it became clear to the county’s appraisal staff that if the office were going to continue to run efficiently it needed to convert to a modern Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) system. Such a system would allow the office to take advantage of a number of new technologies and methods. After reviewing CAMA systems on the market, Stafford County chose Manatron CAMA as its new system because it offered the capabilities for which it was searching, and was emerging as the system of choice in Virginia.
During training in May of 2002 the staff met its first challenge: producing values for the county’s supplementary tax bills. The actual billing would be produced in the old billing system but by trending values in the new CAMA system the county was able to smoothly move through this process.
The next hurdle, in the spring of 2003, was to produce a bill file with Manatron CAMA. Many hours were spent with the Manatron team and a module was developed within the system that would calculate tax bills and meet the county’s specific requirements.
The county’s 2004 reassessment was the first reassessment on Manatron CAMA. Naturally, the county staff was a bit nervous, specifically about moving into the residential models and the land engine. Some feared that the set-up time and learning curve would be too great. Fortunately, Manatron CAMA provides the tools to make the process as easy as possible for the user. The first step was to set the land engine to price 480 neighborhoods and more than 43,000 parcels. The county then priced all residential improvements using the Manatron CAMA models. Utilizing the robust Manatron CAMA analysis tools, the county was able to make the appropriate neighborhood and house type adjustments to ensure accurate values.
The results were better than the county ever expected. The countywide C.O.D. (coefficient of dispersion) was under 8.0 and the assessment to sales ratio came in at 90 percent. Using Manatron CAMA to complete an entire reassessment cycle, the county was able to build the foundation that will allow their office to succeed well into the future.
Contact: Rachel A. Bryant, marketing manager for Manatron, Inc. Call 866/471-2900 or visit www.manatron.com. Manatron, Inc., a VML sustaining member, is a nationwide customer and property-centric company that designs, develops, markets and supports a family of Web-based and client-server application property software products for county, city and town governments.
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