RDC – County Property Tax Assessments and Taxes- Database – Notes

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Last updated: April 18, 2024.

Sources of Revenue. Our major sources of revenue are from income taxes and property taxes. We can access our property assessments and taxes by area, type of property, trends, etc.

Our county GIS system includes assessed values and taxes paid but maintains only 5 years of data. https://brownin.wthgis.com/

This data comes from the auditor, the assessor, and the treasurer. The software system used is Government Utilities Technology Service, Inc (GUTS).  https://www.g-uts.com/about/

This data is now available on the “Cloud” and we can get access to more than 5 years (maybe 15) of data using an Application Programming Interface (API).  We would need access to analytic software to query the data to discover trends in assessed values by areas and types of properties.  An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a set of rules or protocols that enables software applications to communicate with each other to exchange data, features, and functionality.

It may be possible to get support from graduate students at IU. They have access to software called Tableau. IU supported two previous RDC projects.

To get access to the data, we received  permission (a memo) from the commissioners, treasurer, auditor, and assessor.  Below is the email correspondence from Eric Goodnight from G-UTS.

If we want to target an area for development, access to the data would provide a current baseline. This helps identify the expected results (increases in the tax base)  you expect from strategies like a TIF.

Email Correspondence

Brown – Property Tax Analytics (from Brown RDC
Grant Goodnight <grantg@g-uts.com>
Wed, Dec 27, 2023, 11:56 AM

Hey Tim,

I hope you’re doing well and had a Merry Christmas. I recently received your request and had a chance to review it this morning. Back in August, Kevin Patrick reached out to us, and I sent him the attached list of available Adhoc views, which you can access using both our Adhoc reporting tool and our API. Let me provide you with more details about these tools.

Before we dive into the technical aspects of obtaining the data, I want to note that the data you’re looking for belongs to our customers, specifically the Commissioners and office holders (Auditor, Treasurer, and Assessor). We’ll need written authorization from them, granting the RDC access before we can permit anyone to connect to the live data.

Regarding your request, it appears that some of the information you seek may already be part of the assessment trending process, which I believe Nexus handles for Brown County (although I’m not entirely certain). Some of the elements you’ve mentioned could potentially be gathered during this process, but I’m not entirely sure about your specific goals.

Our PVDNet platform offers various ways to extract data, allowing you to use your preferred analysis tool. First and foremost, we have an Adhoc reporting tool that enables you to create reports from a comprehensive set of views (please see the attachment). These views cover almost every critical data element within the system. You have the flexibility to generate full reports within the tool or export raw data for analysis in another tool.

I also wanted to mention that Brown County is scheduled to transition to our cloud platform within the next month. Once this transition is complete, they will gain access to our web API (PVDNet API), which includes an Adhoc endpoint. This integration will make it easier to connect to the same views available through our Adhoc reporting tool, streamlining your data analysis process.

To sum it up, the first step is to verify with the Assessor whether the data you require is already a part of the trending process. If it isn’t, then the RDC would need to request authorization from the relevant parties to access the data. Once authorization is secured, our Adhoc reporting tool and the upcoming PVDNet API should make it straightforward to analyze the data using your preferred tool. If you can provide us with specific data requirements, we’d be glad to recommend any relevant reports or data sources.

If you have more questions or need further assistance, please feel free to reach out.

Best regards,
Grant

Grant Goodnight
President
P: 765.481.2851 | F: 765.535.5044
grantg@g-uts.com | http://www.g-uts.com | LinkedIn

=====================
From: tjclark2036@gmail.com <tjclark2036@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2023 8:01 PM
To: ‘Greg Jordan’ <gregj@g-uts.com>
Subject: RE: Brown – Property Tax Analytics (from Brown RDC)

Hi Greg,

On the “analytics”, this would include software that makes it easier to query the data and produce some pretty good visuals of the information (see links below).

For instance, within Brown County, what areas are seeing the most and least assessed values and property taxes stratified by property types, townships, “neighborhoods”, etc. Trend data on this information would also be helpful and would allow us to assess the impacts of development strategies.

I assume G-UTS maintains our historical data.

IU/SPEA students have offered to provide support if they could get access to the data. I think they have access to Tableau which is what the Kelly School of Business at IU uses. We also got contacted by a company that offered analytic-type support.

Those offering support said that they just need the “API.”

What would it take for the county to get access to the API?

Tim

List of software

10 Best Predictive Analytics Tools and Software of 2023
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/best-predictive-analytics-tools/

The Best Data Visualization Tools Of 2023

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