OVERVIEW

When Franklin County Auditor Michael Stinziano was sworn into office in March of 2019, one of his first commitments to the taxpayers of this community was to have an independent performance audit conducted for the 2017 sexennial reappraisal and for all appraisal projects going forward. To keep that promise to the residents and businesses of Franklin County, the Auditor’s office contracted an independent appraisal company and an outside statistician to analyze the degree of equity in valuation assessment achieved, the accuracy of valuation, and the overall quality of the 2020 Triennial Update of Franklin County.
 
The report identifies two specific areas of note regarding the 2020 triennial appraisal:

1. Successful Neighborhood Delineation: The report concludes that breaking existing neighborhoods into small, similar subsets improved the valuation accuracy and property assessment consistency. The report also states, “breaking these neighborhoods down into smaller subunits of comparison enabled better overall equity.”
2. No Price-Related Bias: Price-Related Bias (PRB) analysis is a statistical instrument used to determine if equity has been achieved across a broad range of properties within a property class, like single-family residential properties. This is the first time Franklin County has had a PRB analysis conducted and it is an extension of the work done by the Kirwan Institute in 2021 studying whether historical assessment bias has existed in Franklin County. While the Kirwan Report concluded current Franklin County appraisal practices are not contributing to the furtherance of historical bias, the independent review of the 2020 triennial audit also confirms there to be no price-related bias in the county as well.