SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - Veterans, Homeowners, and Property Taxes: The Facts Behind the Headlines

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Send us a text and chime in!A Conversation with Yavapai County Assessor Judd SimmonsWhen Yavapai County Assessor Judd Simmons joins the show, it usually means one thing: an important clarification the public needs to hear. This time was no different.Fresh off an article that “blew up the internet,” Simmons sat down to explain recent changes to property tax exemptions, particularly those affecting disabled veterans. While also clearing up long-standing confusion about what the Assessor’s Office actually does (and doesn’t do).Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Judd Simmons, Yopai County Assessor, how are you? Good guy. You get to catch up with you, man. Thank you for inviting me out. Again, when was last, I was here? Thank you for coming out. What did we do the last time? Not often enough.

You need to come out every time you blow up the internet with an article. Well, I didn't realize that was so popular. What I want to talk about is that recent article, which I'll let you recap. But afterwards, I also want to kind of redefine your role as the county assessor, people always need to be re-informed about what the real information is, what you really do, what your offices do. You have a lot of people over there. I know that. So let's talk about that latest article. What was it again? I just, I can't remember, but I literally called you like, dude, you've blown up the internet. What's going on? So we have three personal exemption

programs at the assessor's office that can provide property tax relief. And I'll go over real quick. There's widower exemption. There's a disability exemption. And then there's a veterans disability exemption. And so what happened was last year there was legislation passed that provides 100. 100% full exemption for 100% veterans disability. And so, you know, that's, you know, a very, very...

This relates to property taxes, right? Exactly. Exactly. Right. Exactly. This would be exempt from property tax. So, yeah, so that's been the big hot topic. Of course, there's, you still have to,

There's still some qualifications. So with the veterans exemption, there's still, there's two parts of it. There's a one to 99% disability for non-service connected situations. And then there's 100% service disability. So those are those are the two. And that the 100% gives you the full exemption from property tax. The confusion is when they pass. the legislation, there were some that thought that there was no income qualification. However,

unfortunately, the way they designed the legislation, wrote it. Yes. And so there is still an income qualifier. So if you make too much money, you still would not qualify. Understood. Yeah. Okay. And what we're going to do is embed this. podcast into that original article and re-share it again. So that's all good news. I wasn't aware of those exemptions, and I'm sure a lot of people still aren't. So we have to keep educating the public. And speaking of educating the public, I'd love to revisit.

We've done this in other shows, but do it again. They'll make great reels, educational reels that you guys could use on your website is the role of the Yopai County tax assessor. A lot of people think that you're the big, bad wolf that sets the tax rate. and collects. We know that's not true. Yes. Why don't we go ahead and set the record straight again as to what the role is of your offices? So we have a staff of about 58 employees.

And of course, we are the assessor. And I like to say we're not the tax assessor. So we don't do, we don't have anything to do with the taxes. We set the values, then the board and the taxing jurisdictions and the, they're the ones who set the tax rate. Yeah, my county board of supervisors, sets those rates. The board sets the county rates, the jurisdictions, including the school districts, fire districts. They're the ones who set the tax rate. And then the treasurer is the one who sends out the bills and collects those taxes.

Okay. And so what we do in a nutshell is we identify all property. Of course, you know, we list all those properties and we value those properties. So identifying, locate, you know, that kind of thing. So once, you know, D comes into the recorder's office, we get the legal description, we parcel it. Then our, you know, our appraisers are assigned to value, those value of those properties. Also, we've got, you know, we're also permit driven.

So once a permit comes into our office, either new construction or remodel, those kind of things, that triggers our appraisers to go out, do their measuring, do their assessing, and we put it into the system. And the other thing I'd like to, you know, explain to people is that, you know, we are, because we have the staff of 58 employees in a county the size of the state of New Jersey, you know, we have 172,000 parcels that we have to value, you know, each year. And so that it is, you know, impossible to do on an individual basis. Sure.

So what we do is we value, um, based on, uh, It's called mass appraisal. So it's statistics, it's averages. So you take, you know, a certain square footage home in a certain neighborhood and a certain condition, age, those kind of things. And we build value based on those parameters. Okay. So you got the treasurer who collects taxes.

You got the board of supervisors for the county that sets them. And your offices are basically the ones. way I hear it, curators that index and organize all those properties for record keeping purposes. I'm dumbing it down for guys like me. Right, right. All right. Well, thanks for that. And I think the exemptions are awesome.

We'll make sure to reshare those on signals aZ.com. What else is going on? Let me mention, too, though, in addition to, you know, we do all of our valuation throughout the year, you know, we're picking up properties, assigning value. those kind of things. And then right about now is our, you know, our big moment, our big time of years. That's when our value notices come out. Yeah, exactly. So we are gearing up for that. We've already sent, you know, drafts to the printer. And so we're going back and forth on that and making sure everything's ready to go. And once those hit the mailbox, you have, once you receive your notice and you're not

you don't agree with our value, then you have 60 days to appeal that value. And that's the full cash value. So that's awesome. What that, so what you're saying, this is a great real Tony too. So there's a third part. When do these notices of value, because we're going to do a story on it like we do every year for your offices, when do the notices of value come out from the Yabai County Assessor's office?

So they will probably be mailed February. I think it's the first or second week of February. I don't have the exact date. So right around the set. We'll call it mid-February. Mid-February. And so you have 60 days from once you, you know, once that mailing happens to appeal. And so the process is you, you know, go online or come into our office and pick up the petition for review.

And that's for the residential property. And you can appeal or your commercial property. You can appeal your land values, your ad. values and and what happens from there then you know we we kind of we kind of shift into a different role and that's you know when we put our you know a fear praiser hat on so we're looking at comps you know we're we're going back and forth you know if they they provide you know their data we look at our data and so we kind of get down to the nitty gritty and you know make sure that we have it right now if if the decision

made is not what the property owner wanted. There's another option. So beyond that, they can go to the Board of Equalization. And that's kind of like a, it's where we hire a hearing officer. Arbitrators. Yeah. And it's kind of like a courtroom scene. So, you know, he's up there. He's got the information. He got the plaintiff and, you know, defend it, you know, kind of thing. And, you know, everybody brings their information and then he makes a decision based on how he feels, you know, that what he feels is the right decision. And then third option is a tax court. So beyond all of that, if you're not happy with decisions, you've got lots of options. So awesome. We've covered the exemptions, an update on that, which is great.

We've covered roles of the assessor, which I think it's one. always important to remind everybody what the real information is. We've covered notice of valuation that's coming out somewhere right around mid-February, and then what your options are if you want to challenge what those evaluations are. Correct. Correct. Yeah, we have, we have several departments within our department. You know, we've got personal property, which people forget about. You know, there's still personal property that we value. And that's anything over a half a million dollars. So it's, it's, you know, big businesses, big commercial operation. So there is a personal property tax as well. So we have a whole property, personal property

tax division. We have cartographers that do mapping. We have a title division that looks and processes the deeds. They look at the deeds and decipher, you know, look, figure out the legal description and most, mostly the ownership for title. And then cartographers take the legals and, you know, they do all the parceling and the mapping and that kind of thing. And of course, we have our customer service that deals with, with, you know, the exemption and exemptions and people come into the door. And then my role, you know, as the assessor, you know, and I'm kind of the, you know, the leader, the manager. And we do a lot of, I do a lot of public outreach. And right now, I'm part of our state association.

So right now we're knee deep into legislation. So we've got some bills that we're proposing, bills that we're trying to fight. those kind of thing. And then on top of all that, it's beginning of budget. So we're working on our budget for this year as well. With the growth that we see both from a commercial side and a residential side, are there triggers within the statutes or what, I don't know what you would call it, with any bureaucracy or the government, this is, okay, the assessor's office needs.

X more people this year because over the past five years, places grow by, you know, three and a half percent. Right. Just throwing out random numbers. Yeah, we're not so much. We can stay on top of the growth because, you know, mostly it's, like I said, we're permit driven. So construction, you know, is not really, does not necessarily match growth, you know,

You still people moving, moving in, you know, they're finding opportunities. It doesn't necessarily correlate. I just got some numbers. I don't know what to do with them. But we are processing about 40, was it, 4,500 permits a year. Okay. Yeah, so it issued 3,600 permits last year. We worked 4,300.

So we're, you know, from prior years. Right. So, and that's, that's a good number. That's pretty standard. A few years ago, we were up to 5,000, you know, when things were really hot. That's correct. But, again, you know, with, you know, our staff is still able to, you know, stay on top of it, you know, by prioritizing, you know, what needs to be done. So as far as your staff has it grown, but you've been able to facilitate the growth, which is actually good.

news from a budget. Yeah, we, exactly. We try to stay lean. We try to, you stay efficient at the officer's office. Awesome. Yep. Is the government starting to use AI? A little bit. A little bit. There are appraisal programs out there right now. It's, you know, it's expensive. It's like, all right, how is this really going to benefit us? Right. Right now we're, you know, we're comfortable with what we're doing. Don't fix what's not. Exactly. And, you know, It's all bells and whistles right now. You know, we do little things like, you know, plugging in for writing letters and, you know, those kind of things,

little reports. Those are kind of handy to do. But right now on a big scale, no, we're not there yet or, you know. Cool. So I know you're involved with a personal note or community note. You're involved with, is it Boys and Girls Club? What else are doing? I'm on the board of the Boards and Girls Club.

And of course, the 100 men who care. I'm on that board as well. We got one coming up. We do next month. Are you going to go this time? I'll try to go. I'll try to go just because you asked. You know what we're featuring?

No, I have not been a part of the planning meeting recently. Oh, you're giving me a hard time. Yeah. You know, with the holidays, it's kind of a, you know, we're in a hurry up phase. thrown off. So I'm not sure who will be attending for this next month's event, but it's always a good time. All right. And I'm on another foundation.

I stay busy. Cool. Yeah. And then on top of, you know, the day job. The day job. Yeah. Well, Judd Simmons, Yopai County assessor, thanks for coming in again. You just got to keep coming back more often.

Got to keep harassing us. Yeah. Hey. I'm glad we can blow up. the internet or whatever you said broke it like two weeks ago so we're gonna do we get do we get do we get a prize or what do we get what do we get? I'll buy you much. Okay. Thanks for coming in dude. You bet. Thanks for having me. You bet. Thanks for having me. You bet.