Stewart Oliver - Challenges and Responsibilities in Assessment Administration

When Stewart Oliver made the jump from fee appraisal to county assessment work in 2009, he couldn't have predicted he'd become Gwinnett County's Chief Appraiser eight years later. But his journey illuminates something deeper about our profession: how the best assessors balance analytical rigor with the messy realities of public service.

The Data-Driven Assessor's Dilemma

"I'm a very analytical, data-driven person," Oliver explains, "the kind of person that wants to be able to analyze data, likes big data." This isn't just personal preference, it's become essential to modern assessment practice. The difference between small counties struggling with limited comparables and large jurisdictions swimming in data has never been more stark.

Yet Oliver's experience reveals the fundamental tension we all face: data excellence alone doesn't solve assessment challenges. When he describes having to "make concessions" on values that appraisers worked hard to defend, he's touching on something every assessment leader knows intimately. The pride in getting values right collides with administrative necessities, appeal deadlines, political pressures, and the simple fact that perfection at scale is impossible.

"There's opinions, there's gray areas, gradients of values," he acknowledges. This isn't weakness; it's wisdom.

The Complexity of Modern Assessment Administration

The shift from pure appraisal to assessment administration hit Oliver hard. "There was things I was unwittingly following directions on... not realizing that maybe that motivation or that rule came from a regulation," he admits. Sound familiar? How many of us came up through the technical side only to discover the labyrinth of state regulations, digest deadlines, and political dynamics waiting in leadership?

What's striking is Oliver's approach to resource management. As a self-described "small government kind of guy," he wrestles with the universal assessor's lament: we need more. More staff, more technology, more resources. But he's learned something crucial: "I feel responsible that we squeeze more and more out of what we already have before we make that next investment."

This isn't just fiscal conservatism, it's recognition that we're accountable to the same taxpayers we assess. Every budget increase eventually shows up in someone's tax bill.

The Changing Landscape: Technology and Turnover

Two forces are reshaping our profession faster than most realize. First, the explosion of tax representatives following Georgia's universal notice requirement. Oliver watched an entire industry spring up almost overnight, creating both opportunities and challenges. While these services fill a need, "people are working extra jobs trying to buy groceries, who's got time to represent themselves?", they also create distance between assessors and property owners.

"I'd rather see us have the ability to educate more people and have them get engaged," Oliver notes. It's a sentiment many share but struggle to act on.

Second, the retirement wave is real and accelerating. "We don't have pensions anymore," Oliver observes, noting how this changes retention dynamics. The institutional knowledge that once "dripped all over the place" through 20-30 year veterans is walking out the door.

The solution? Smart systems that embed expertise rather than relying on individual memory. "Having smart systems that don't let you make unnecessary mistakes," as Oliver puts it, like the old fee appraiser's nightmare of forgetting the street photo, but applied to every process in the office.

Integration as Strategy

Perhaps Oliver's most prescient observation concerns vendor relationships and technology integration. The days of monolithic CAMA systems trying to do everything are ending. "We've moved away from where the companies that focus on CAMA felt they had to do everything," he explains. Instead, best-in-class components working together, change detection here, statistical analysis there, visualization tools connecting them all.

This isn't just about technology preferences. It's about building resilient assessment operations that can function even as staff turns over and complexity increases. When Oliver talks about reducing audit workload through better front-end systems, he's describing efficiency gains that compound over time.

Building Public Trust Through Engagement

Despite all the technology talk, Oliver returns repeatedly to public engagement. His background attending New England town halls shaped his belief that "people need to be able to speak their mind." Even when only five people show up to a public meeting in a county of one million, the effort matters.

Virtual engagement offers promise, "we actually had more questions submitted for one of our hearings this year than we've ever received before", but lacks the visceral connection of face-to-face interaction. The challenge for our profession: How do we build public trust when most property owners only think about us once a year, usually unhappily?

Key Takeaways

For New Assessors: "Relax," Oliver advises. "You don't have to figure it out on your own." The assessment community's collaborative culture is our greatest strength. Network relentlessly, ask questions freely, and remember that someone else has faced your problem before.

For Assessment Leaders: Balance is everything. You can't delegate everything, but you must delegate what you can. Focus on triage, identify where investments yield the greatest returns. And remember: making concessions isn't betraying appraisal principles; it's serving the public good.

For the Profession: We're at an inflection point. The combination of retirements, technological advancement, and changing public expectations demands new approaches. But the fundamentals remain: fair assessment requires both analytical excellence and human judgment, both technological sophistication and public engagement.

Oliver's journey from fee appraiser measuring houses to chief appraiser managing 19,000 appeals annually captures our profession's evolution. As he puts it, with characteristic understatement: "It's been tough because there's been a lot of changes... But I'm really surprised at the amount of community that exists."

That community, whether in Gwinnett County, across Georgia, or throughout our profession, remains our greatest asset as we navigate the challenges ahead.