The following short video of Shayne Kavanaugh, senior manager of research at the Government Finance Officers Association, was one of seven we filmed at the Government Finance Officers Association’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida, between June 11 and June 13.

The previous videos, which were posted over the last couple of weeks, were with Shakeel Yusuf, chief financial officer for Prince William County Public Schools, which can be seen here; Virginia Jennifer Becker, financial services director for the city of Burbank, California, which can be seen here; Sharon Edmundson, director of municipal finance programs with the North Carolina League of Municipalities, which can be seen here; David Goldman, deputy city administrator for Oak Harbor, Washington, which can be seen here;  Zach Markovits vice president and local practice lead at Results for America, which you can view here; and GFOA Executive Director Chris Morrill, which is available here. 

This is the final segment in this series. They’ll remain available on the Barrett and Greene, Inc. website.  

In this one, Kavanaugh, delves into some of the issues the GFOA has pursued in a recent report called Rethinking Property Taxes, which states that  “Property taxes are the most important local source of revenue for local governments.

They are “stable, transparent, and highly visible. Plus, the tax base is immobile. Yet it is also an unpopular tax. Rehabilitating the property tax can be done with two broad strategies that center the interest of taxpayers: Provide accurate and fair valuation of tax liability (and) provide stable, predictable costs to taxpayers.”

A few highlights from the video:

• One approach to making property taxes a better revenue source for everyone “is to do property census more often. So, the idea here is that if you assess property taxes yearly, you have less opportunity for the real value of the property to deviate substantially from the assessed value of the property.”

• "Another important point is to make better use of modern data science techniques.”

• “Tax revolts are often the result of high or . . . sudden changes in people’s property tax liabilities, right? So, not only is this just a fairness issue for kind of an ethical reason of fairness in public finance but the very practical reason that we want folks to feel that the property taxes are worthy of not revolting against.”

(In 2023, we also produced a number of filmed interviews at GFOA’s annual conference in Portland, which we ran as one big feature under the headline “Voices from the GFOA.”)

#StateandLocalGovernmentFinancialManagement #StateandLocalTaxManagement #StatePropertyTaxManagementAndPolicy #RethinkingStateandLocalPropertyTax #StatePerformanceManagement #GovernmentFinanceOfficersAssociation #GFOA #VoicesFromTheGFOA #GFOA2024AnnualConference #BarrettandGreeneInc