KEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWS
GUY deBOER KONK
BROADCASTING NEWS DIRECTOR
n A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H Karl Borglum
Guy deBoer | GD Ervin Higgs has had quite a long career working as the Monroe County Tax Ap- praiser and he's retiring now after 35 years. What has it been like working under Mr. Higgs and the office he has been managing?
Karl Borglum | KB He’s a good boss and his top priorities have always been that we do the job correctly as mandated under state statue, make every attempt to serve the public to the best of our abili- ties as statue allows, and treat people as fairly and with the most respect that we can possibly muster.
GD As the County Appraiser, you are constantly looking and apprais- ing all the market real estate trans-
CHANGE OF GUARD
actions and trying to establish fair values for these properties but from time to time owners feel that they have not been treated fairly. What’s the process that an owner goes through for re-evaluation of their property?
GDTe process is pretty simple. Statue allows every property owner or agent of the owner to appeal the value of the property within 25 days of the mailing of the notice. Tat typically happens in August and we’ll get anywhere from 65,000 plus or minus taxable properties in Monroe County. We have gotten anywhere from a low of 400 appeals to a high of 2,000 appeals, which happened a couple of years ago when the market was really falling. We then set up an administrative review on it. Te property owner could convince us that we are wrong based on evidence or argu-
ments and we adjust it if we concur that our opinion is somehow flawed. If we do not agree we de- fend the property before a third party independent judicator.
GD How many individual proper- ties are there in all of Monroe County?
KB: We have an access of 100,000 parcels in Monroe County which includes everything that's within the county boundary and that in- cludes what is in the Everglades. A lot of that is opened by the Feds in the state so even though it is on the tax roll it is not on the taxable base and we do have responsibility to value that also. As far as the admin- istrative process goes we spend most of our time concerning our- selves with privately owned proper- ties which actually create a tax link.
4 KONK Life
GD How many people are employed by the tax appraiser’s office here in our county?
KBWe currently have around 52 people on the staff. We have three offices throughout the Keys. We have an office in Plantation Key, Marathon, and Key West. Tis is an annual process and it takes a lot of work to create a tax roll that is au- dited by the state and public every year and defend it.
GD How many years has Mr. Higgs been the Monroe County Property Appraiser?
KBTirty-five years, but he has been in the office for almost 45 years. He has served the people of Monroe County for a long, long time.
GD He is actually several year past
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24