Orleans Parish Board of Review.

That's usually held in a public venue at Lakeview Christian Center on Fleur de Lis Drive. Once the open rolls is completed, that's when Hammerman and Gaynor steps in to have the open appeals process. We also have that at a public venue, it's usually at Delgado Community College. These appraisals are reviewed along with the Office of the Assessor's information. We review the appraisals, the comparables, the photographs, and any other documentation provided by the property owner, and then after all that, we simply make a recommendation to the Board of Review, the City Council acting as the Board of Review. Again, we don't make a final determination, we don't make a final decision, we don't set the tax rates, we simply make a recommendation. This particular year, after the initial assessments were determined and the 30 day open rolls process was completed, we looked at 531 files. This compares very much to the prior years of 760 in 2026, 608 in 2023, and of course the aberration on that chart is the annual, I mean the every four year quadrennial period when there was 6,227. Of the 531 appeals managed by Hammerman and Gaynor, our hearing officers agreed with the Assessor's Office on 238 of those cases, that's the second column there, or about 44 and a half percent of the total. We also recommended no change in the Assessor's Office initial assessment of 15 personal claims, property claims. The valuation of the HGI source files was $87.5 million. Our recommended valuation was $70.5 million and the differential is about $17 million on valuation to valuation. However, if you look at the situation from where the certified assessments were last year, the percentage difference comes down to 11.8 percent, which is very consistent with what we've seen over the 14 years that we've been of service to the city performing this role. Of the ones that we're all aware, there was a group of properties that the Assessor had some issue with and we welcome an opportunity to meet with the Assessor. The first we heard about the problem, even though there was 12 members of the Assessor's Office there at Delgado with us the entire two weeks and we were interacting with them, but we understand there was 41 properties that were questioned and the different breakdowns of those properties. We, of course, would welcome the opportunity to sit down with the Assessor and indeed we've reached out to Assessor Williams and he has agreed to meet with us. Going through the whole quality control process, our hearing officers hear the appellant as well as the Assessor's representative, who is generally present at most of these hearings. Again, the Assessor's staff is in the next room and they're invited over to listen in. They're open to participate in each and every one of the hearings. We then document our findings. We recommend the assessed values for the program review. The program staff checks off the calculation that identifies any missing evidence and then the board considers these recommendations. Last but not least, even if there's an issue beyond that, remember there's yet another appeals process to the Louisiana Tax Commission. Our recommendation today is that, you know, we consider approval of the whole group of 531 minus perhaps the 41 that there was some questions on and we'd be happy to sit down and meet with the assessor. Again, we just saw this letter at the same time you did. It was turned over to us by the Times-Picayune, but we'd be happy to sit down and meet with the assessor and discuss these particular properties. One of which, for instance, one that represented about 25 percent of the differential was simply one that was a procedural error. This particular property owner was not sent notice, was not given a notification that their assessment had been changed within 30 days of the open rolls period. So the hearing office on that particular one really didn't have a judgment call to make. It wasn't so much an analysis as the protocols weren't met and so we had to revert back to the prior assessment. That's basically our overview, our presentation, but Mr. Buechler, Mr. Laughlin, Mr. Truax, and myself are here to answer any questions. Well we have one comment card from Tiffany Pounds. Okay, good morning council. My name is Tiffany Pounds and I'm representing Housing NOLA. So Housing NOLA calls for immediate action to address inequitable property tax assessments affecting seniors and homeowners with disabilities across New Orleans. These residents deserve fair assessments and the protections guaranteed to them under Louisiana law. We urge the city council to take four critical actions. First, to correct the assessments of over 2,700 seniors and homeowners with disabilities who were overcharged, ensuring they receive appropriate relief for the 2027 tax year. Second, direct the assessor's office to apply the lower of the frozen assessment or current assessed value consistent with practices across Louisiana. The special assessment freeze should serve as a ceiling, not a floor. Third, establish a special extended appeals process so affected homeowners are not penalized for missing deadlines they were never adequately informed about. And finally, to pursue a permanent legislative solution that ensures these protections are applied fairly and consistently moving forward. For seniors and residents with disabilities living on fixed incomes, every dollar matters. These protections were established to help people remain in their homes, not to create additional financial burdens. Housing NOLA urges immediate action to correct these inequities and ensure that no homeowner pays more than the law requires. Thank you so much. So Ms. Pounds, you can stay there for a second. Ms. Becknell, can you please explain to Ms. Pounds why many of the things they're saying are contrary to law in the charter? Certainly. So this process is established by state law that's LARS 47-1992.

It establishes the process for appeals of assessments to the Board of Review and the City Council has no authority to amend state law processes. The law provides that the Board of Review shall conduct public hearings for all persons or their representatives desiring to be heard on the assessments. Requests for these hearings must be made to the Board of Review no later than three business days after the last date upon which the lists are exposed by the assessor. So in this case that deadline expired on August 20th, 2026. The council has no authority to submit a request for hearing at this point because number one the deadline is passed but number two they are neither the taxpayer nor their bona fide representative. In this case the law specifically provides that nothing contained in the law shall be construed to authorize a tax recipient body to challenge the assessment of all property within its taxing jurisdiction in a single complaint. Thank you. To be more specific and this is I want to express how frustrating this process is because the reality is had Housing NOLA used its platform to actually tell those individuals when the rolls open and appeal them, we would have authority to help them. What you're requesting us to do effectively as an appeals court is to file a lawsuit for homeowners. We can't do that. It is literally prohibited by the charter and by law. So what would have been helpful because both Housing NOLA and other groups have been complaining and telling people to call the council since August, it's had you simply educated homeowners under the law to go file an appeal regarding an incorrect assessment which would have included HGI if their age freeze had not been in place, correct? So had those individuals filed that appeal we could grant relief and so what's frustrating is that rather than do that you're asking the council to do something that had you done a cursory examination of the law and the charter you know we can't do. We literally cannot do the things you're asking us to do. It is prohibited by law and by the charter. So what I would ask you to do which would be helpful to those homeowners is to make sure that when the rolls open that they file those appeals because at that time we can grant relief. Regularly the council grants almost all the appeals that come before us for people challenging their assessments. That is the process. So simply put, not to beat a horse that is already dead, if you want to help, research the law and use the law. Don't just ask for demands that functionally, legally, we cannot grant. So question, so for since this process is closed, for next year since we do know that there are over 2,700 taxpayers that have been overcharged, for next year when the process comes around if they do appeal will they be refunded the money that they were overcharged? You cannot grant money retroactively. We cannot grant money for the past year but we can correct it going forward. That's the power we have. We can't retroactively give people money that may or may not be done if the timeline for an appeal is passed. So even though the assessor actually made mention in Verite back in May that he would give the money back to the residents, we still wouldn't be able to? Well then that's a question for the assessor because our role is limited as HGI said and as you heard from the law, when an appeal is made to us we can act. If no appeals made, that is the limitation of our authority. I'm not aware of the assessor having any ability to do so but if back in May he made that argument, I would have hoped that organizations like yours would have notified homeowners to go file appeals because had they filed an appeal based on age or anything else, HGI, which is our party that does the appeals, would have heard that complaint, would have made a recommendation based on it and based upon what you're saying, I'm not saying you're incorrect. It could be and might be very likely that people are not being correctly given the information to freeze their assessments. At that point HGI as our representative, the hearing officer can go you're right or you're wrong and even at that point they would have the ability to come to us over HGI's recommendation and say we still disagree with HGI, we need relief, then we as a council can act. That's the only role we have in this process. Okay, so yes, I will bring that information back to our supporters and our partners. Okay, thank you. Counselor, do you have some questions anyone? Okay, go ahead. Good morning guys. Just a general question, how could a property have a reduction more than once during a four-year reappraisal period? Because in the assessor's letter he flagged that a couple of the properties already had previous reductions during this four-year period and so I was wondering how a property could receive more than one reduction during this four-year period. Some of them may have a change in character, they could have a renovation. But I think in his letter he specifically said they didn't have any changes to the property. I mean I'm not sure which one he was referring to offhand, but there we could have gotten it wrong before or there could be things that they they didn't bring to our attention. There were several properties that they had IDA damage that still hadn't been fixed. So maybe when you reduced it the first time you didn't capture, you didn't cover everything. Exactly. One particular property, well actually two, are related to the old Mercy Hospital, the Lindy Bog Center. That's actually slated for demolition. We had a ceremonial demolition of it. So the the nature of that property, basically it won't be there anymore next year. So that's how it received that it might have received a change mid quadrennial. Understood. Okay, but but basically something has to change to the structure, to the property for that reduction to occur. Or some new information is brought to us.

Something that wasn't, you didn't have beforehand. Which is which is why we have it every every year, not just every four years, because things changed, demolished or gutted, etcetera. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor McCain. Good morning. Good morning, gentlemen. The assessor's letter made a mention of a possible conflict. Can you flush that out? Um, I'm not saying there is or is not a conflict, but just explain to us in the audience, um, what that potential conflict may be and how did that go into this? Sure. So the individual that was referenced is a professional that actually worked for the assessor's office in the past, worked for more than a decade at the Louisiana Tax Commission. So somebody who's highly, highly qualified. That particular individual did not sit in on or did not hear any of the properties that she might that person may have been in the least bit affiliated with. So I think simply the information the assessor's office got on that one was erroneous. Moreover, again, the assessor's office has 98 10 11 12 people there with us at Delgado who interacted with this individual who knows this individual because again, she's worked in this area for years, both at the assessor's office and at the Tax Commission. So we as a protocol made sure that there was absolutely this person was not involved at all in any of the assessments that she would have any affiliation with whatsoever. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Clevenger. Good morning. Morgan Clevenger. Um, I'm very concerned because, um, you know, as deep of a dive as I have done personally over the years into the mysteries of the assessor's office. Um, in my recent foray into the border review process, um, the gentleman came in and in less under two minutes told me No, we I don't know who we was, but we cannot do anything for you. We're not changing anything. And the fact of the matter is, is that all of our citizens who have lived through multiple storms and multiple snow storms, hurricanes, tropical storms, water main breaks, we have damage to our homes, unmitigated losses and a roof, a compromised roof continues to deteriorate if it's not replaced. So, yes, changes happen. It gets worse. And the fact of the matter is our senior are up against it. We are very, very concerned about the overpayment that 2,500 seniors have overpaid on their age freeze. But at the end of the day, what this does is it hollows out the city, it forces people to sell at a loss, and forces them to go into apartments or perhaps become homeless. This is a crisis. And at this point, the mysteries of the Board of Review are not serving the citizens of New Orleans. And I beg you all, beg you to create a better process. We need property tax reform all the way around. And we cannot just go in these offices and sit and wait and be dismissed, and not even heard, because people are suffering. So I'm begging y'all, please fix this process. Thank you. Ms. Clevenger, I know you might have missed the earlier part, but the process for doing Board of Review is established by state law. So I would really encourage you to talk to our legislators, because I'm not, there's certainly parts of what you're saying that I think are worthwhile, but I think you have to get that. Well, I don't think, sorry, Ashley, it's wrong. I know that we can't fix it here. So the Board of Review process is set up under state law. If you want to change that process, that has to be done in state statute. Well, we need your help. I mean, what we were told is that the Board of Review represents the city council. I know you were late, but you didn't miss the presentation. The Board of Review is the council. All we can do is hear appeals that have reached the end of that process. We can't do anything up until the point that we get the appeals to us. We cannot file appeals on behalf of people. It's literally prohibited in the law. Oh, I understand that, yeah. And we can't interfere in the process other than when it comes to us for final review. We're basically the appellate court. So there is a lot of protections in place for the appellate court not to interfere with the appeals that are being filed and the appeals that are being processed. Some of the things you're suggesting, that were suggested by Housing NOAA, like extending the process or giving broader consideration of appeals, that has to be done in state law. So I certainly appreciate that we are happy to advocate with you, but I would also appreciate if you would advocate as much to those legislators as you do to us. We will. And, you know, I mean, this is a crisis, as I said, but, you know, one of the concerns is also, as the appellate court, it's in your court to approve the Board of Review's final recommendations. Is that correct? That is correct, which we're about to do. Okay. And so within that, when you're looking at, obviously, tens of thousands of properties. That's not how that works. We have 500 properties that went through the appeals process. Okay, got it. So if you don't file an appeal, there's no appeal. Right. And I did. And several of our neighbors did. I helped a lot of people file appeals. And I think the separate question needs to be to talk to your legislator about your complaints with that appeals process that we don't have control over, because until your appeal goes through that process and comes to us, we can't do anything. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you. Mr. Hughes. Thank you. Good morning. I do have a question, clarifying question for you all. I was a little perplexed that there were some apartment complexes in District E where you all recommended granting the appeal due to vacancies. So tell me how you arrive at that. Why would that? What does vacancies have to do with the value of a property? Yes, sir. So traditionally, there's three kind of modalities to value a property. So for example, I'll start with like residential property.

You have just the sales approach, which is how much would this house sell compared to another house in the neighborhood. And with small single family homes, that's very easy to do. When it comes to commercial property and multifamily property, so anything that's above five units and above, that qualifies as commercial. Then you get into the income approach. And you also have another approach, which is the cost approach, which would be the cost to replace the building if it was demolished or destroyed by fire. So when it comes to multifamily apartment buildings like the one in question, the income approach is the one that's most considered. So we take the presentation of what the appellant gave us, which is the rent roll, the expenses minus the property taxes, and you determine what the net operating income is. And then there's formulas used to determine what the value of the property is compared to that. So in our analysis, it's just surely just a recommendation. We're documenting that at the hearing, the assessor's office was present or not, what documents the appellant provided and then what the conclusion is based off of that. So in certain times, you'll have situations where the vacancy has increased in certain multifamily properties so that each year the value of the property is going down because it's actually not producing anything. So when it's an income-producing property, you cannot ignore the income approach to valuation of the property. Let me interrupt. I'm sorry. So just from my knowledge, when you all have these hearings or whatever and folks are presenting you, these landlords are presenting you these figures, I mean, are these folks on the oath? How do we know this information is accurate? How do we know they're not making it up and trying to game the system? So in our capacity, we're taking them at face value. And then we put that in the recommendation to you, and it appeared to be in order at the time. All right. Well, that doesn't give me much comfort. Thank you very much for that clarity, though. Council Member Gannon. Thank you. Thank you all for presenting today. So it's incredibly important that we have a process, obviously, that has integrity, fairness, and accountability. And here we have a situation where we have an elected official and his team pointing out considerable concerns on a small number of specific properties, which you all have discussed. And while we can't independently verify these concerns at this time, I believe at this time it's wise for the Council to take heed of these issues and the perceived conflict of interest without penalizing those that have gone through the process to get relief. And as you noted in your presentation, you know, these properties that are not approved can go through appeals to the Louisiana Tax Commission. So with that, members, I'm going to make a motion to change HDI's report to modify the recommendations to no change for the 41 unique properties mentioned in your report and as contained in Assessor Williams' letter dated October 8th, 2026. Can I get a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. I'd like to comment, though. Seven yays, no nays. Go ahead. I want to comment, though. My button was pressed, but I just want to make it clear. My button was pressed, and I've had that happen, unfortunately, before. But I just want to say that I would hope that in the future there'll be enhanced communication with the Assessor's Office and your firm. You're put in a position where you have to do certain work based on things that have gone on for multiple years, and I understand that disagreements can take place, but I'm going to certainly just ask publicly that there be enhanced communication. I don't like to read in the paper, to be very honest with you, something that is involving correspondence that is sent to me when the party that is being addressed hasn't been notified. So I'm just asking that there be enhanced communications without using names. The second thing that I want to say is, whereas I hear concerns, I want to say now in advance. This year, in 2027, from July 15th to August 17th, those who pay taxes in the City of New Orleans can go to the Assessor's Office and appeal your assessment. Anyone who is an advocate for people in our city who feel that they've been agreed can share that information starting now, because it's not going to change. There was a lot that went on, because in the past it was only one week, and you had to go and stand in a long line to get your assessment readdressed. Anybody who's been watching this process knows that there has been work, and it has changed the process, so now it's a month. July 15th to August 17th of next year, housing NOLA and advocates, please, you can start the process now. I publicize in my newsletter when the appeals process is open. You can also appeal online, so you don't even have to come and stand in line as it was years ago. So many changes have taken place, but it's up to advocates to also share the facts and information, and if you want to see changes take place, use the state, because for some reason, some people can't seem to find their way to Baton Rouge and can't comment online. A lot of what the City of New Orleans is obliged to do is created in Baton Rouge through certain processes. I watch them, and others watch them too, especially if you're an advocate, I encourage that. So that's all. July 15th to August 17th next year, and let's have enhanced communications by all parties involved. Thank you, Councilman. I agree that the process has been adjusted to make it more accessible to the public, and that 30-day open date, and we also agree, we were blindsided by that letter. We had no idea because we were working with the Assessor's Office on site through the whole process. So, yeah, I think there's a better way to communicate. I believe with that, we have completed all items before, oh, sorry, go ahead, sir.

Your Honor, sir, not all of those properties on that list had that person involved, just for the record. There are several residential properties that were just chosen. We don't know how they came up with those. Okay, well, I look forward to you guys communicating with the Assessor's Office, and look forward to what happens to the Tax Commission regarding those properties. So with that, that clears our docket. No, no, no, no, sir. All right, sorry. We have to adopt the actual resolution. Oh, I apologize. Look at that, I'm jumping ahead of the process. And for the member's information, the exhibit that's referenced in Resolution 26-1 will be amended to include what the Council voted on via Councilmember Caron's motion. Councilman Green has moved. I'll give it a second. Second by Councilmember Caron. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Maybe we should vote. There you go. Seven yays, no nays. Thank you. Councilman Hughes moves we adjourn. There's a resolution, R2. The second. It's right there. The second one. And this just says that this will be certified to the Tax Commission. All right. Seven yays, no nays. And now you can move. All right. Councilman Hughes moves we adjourn. Second by Councilman Green. All in favor? Say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you. We need to reset now for the next meeting.