Scott Rountree - Navigating Change with Tech in Appraisal

Scott Rountree's journey from commercial real estate to chief appraiser in Richmond County, Georgia, reveals something fundamental about our profession: the best assessors are perpetual students who refuse to accept "that's just how we've always done it" as an answer.

When Nobody Knows What's in the Black Box

Here's a scenario that might sound familiar: You send off your sales data spreadsheets to the state. They send back a ratio study report. In between? A black box of statistical mystery that everyone just accepts.

"I was able to through that website... looked at their standard on ratio studies, found some good reports from Florida assessing officials," Rountree explained about his quest to understand the process. "I was able to find all the pieces and read how they analyze this information so I could understand what it is I was doing."

This isn't just professional curiosity, it's about taking ownership of a fundamental measure of our work's quality. How can we explain fairness to taxpayers when we don't fully understand how our own performance is being measured?

The Neighborhood Puzzle: 600 Pieces That Don't All Fit

Richmond County maintains over 600 residential neighborhoods. When Rountree arrived, the office attempted to revalue each one independently every year, a Sisyphean task that, unsurprisingly, "never happened fully."

The solution wasn't fewer neighborhoods, but smarter groupings. By consolidating neighborhoods into nine analytical groups while maintaining individual neighborhood identities, they could run comprehensive regression analyses while still identifying outliers.

"Nothing should be cemented," Rountree notes about neighborhood delineation. "Those neighborhoods could change complexion over time. You need to be able to transition them from one group to another... the creation of the lines [is] a little easier when you understand that they can be blurry."

The Uniformity Paradox

Perhaps the most challenging concept we face is explaining uniformity to property owners. As Rountree puts it: "The hardest thing to explain is uniform doesn't mean because you're in a neighborhood and you're at $100 a square foot, that every house is at $100 a square foot."

This touches on a fundamental tension in our work. Property owners want simple, predictable formulas. But true fairness requires acknowledging that properties are unique, even within the same neighborhood. Our job isn't to make values identical, it's to ensure they're consistently derived using defensible methods.

Breaking Down the Silo

One refreshing aspect of Rountree's approach is his willingness to reach out directly to state officials when confused about processes. A single phone call to the department of audits clarified:

• What they look at for removing outliers
• How they validate (or invalidate) sales
• Where they source data for time adjustments

"All of this information was just discussed in a phone call," he recalls. Sometimes the answer to institutional opacity is simply asking the right questions.

The Technology Imperative (Without the Price Tag)

Rountree's interest in technology stems from a universal challenge: doing more with less. But his criteria are telling: solutions must be "palatable for someone who works in government, meaning not too expensive and also highly efficient."

This isn't about chasing the latest shiny object. It's about finding tools that can "pick up the slack on things that they've been neglecting or just can't get to", a pragmatic approach that acknowledges both budget constraints and the reality of understaffed offices.

Starting Earlier, Thinking Farther

After three years of regression analysis, Richmond County learned a critical lesson: start validating sales much earlier in the year. By having "good training data earlier in the calendar year," they can begin modeling work without the last-minute scramble that plagues many offices.

This shift from reactive to proactive operations is subtle but powerful. It's the difference between perpetually catching up and actually getting ahead.

Key Takeaways

For New Assessors: "Appraisal is a cycle," Rountree emphasizes. You need to go through the work cycle "a couple or three times" before truly understanding the rhythm. Don't expect to grasp everything immediately, but don't wait for knowledge to come to you either.

For Seasoned Professionals: Question your black boxes. Whether it's ratio studies, neighborhood delineations, or valuation methods, understanding the "why" behind established processes makes you a better assessor and a better public servant.

For Office Leaders: Investment in understanding, whether through direct inquiry, research, or strategic reorganization, pays dividends. Rountree's journey from land appraiser to chief appraiser was marked not by accepting the status quo, but by constantly asking, "How can we do this better?"

The thread running through Rountree's experience is clear: excellence in assessment requires curiosity, humility, and a willingness to admit when you don't understand something, followed immediately by the determination to figure it out. In a profession where "that's how we've always done it" is too often the default, this mindset isn't just refreshing. It's essential.