Snohomish County Assessor
Continuing our programs on Snohomish County government is Cindy Portmann, the County Assessor. Why do we need a County Assessor? The mission of the County Assessor's Office is to administer a property assessment system that meets constitutional and statutory requirements in an efficient and professional manner while striving to provide excellence in service to their customers.
According to Cindy, the Assessor's job is a requirement of Washington State law which requires all real and personal property in the county be assessed at 100% of fair market value unless specifically exempted by law such as senior citizens, non-profits and special programs such as open space, farm, agriculture, timber and general forest land and historical restoration. Besides the latter, calculation of lawful levies for all taxing districts, maintaining Assessor's GIS parcel layer and maps used by all county departments, responding to appeals, parcel maintenance and customer service. The Assessor's Office has been highly praised for their customer service efforts at all levels of government and the public.
To give you an idea of the scope of the Assessor's Office, they assess 284,000 real property parcels; 11,800 personal property accounts with $80 billion in assessed value plus $700 million in new construction as well as administer 8,000 senior/disabled person exemptions with 62.5 full time employees with 25,000 real estate excise tax affidavitis. This is all part of the 2014 workload indicators. The Annual revaluation amounts to 1/6th of the property being physically inspected each year.
Cindy Portmann started her career in the Assessor's office in 1987 in an entry level position and within 6 years was appointed Chief Deputy Assessor to former Assessor Gail Rauch. When Rauch retired in 2003, Portmann was elected Assessor and re-elected in 2007 and 2011.
Besides her position as County Assessor, Portmann has been the past President of the Washington State Association of County Assessors, past President of Senior Services of Snohomish County, past President of the Soroptimists International of Everett and is currently a member of the International Association of Assessing Officers. The County Assessor is term limited by county charter unlike many of the other assessors in the state of Washington who are not term limited because their county charter doesn't limit the term of office.