Property Appraisal Program Update

Before you get where you want to go, you need to know where you’re at — even during a pandemic. That was the challenge facing PDRMA and its property appraisal company Duff & Phelps, LLC. WIth our last membership-wide appraisal done 15 years ago, we needed to ensure we had accurate valuation of members' property. The appraisal effort, begun by Duff & Phelps last year which is still on-going, became an exercise in caution, social distancing, best practices and cooperation in the face of 2020 obstacles.

“Outside of COVID, we always have challenges appraising facilities due to weather delays, accessing buildings and working around general public activities,” notes Michael Domin, Managing Director, FAMIS, Duff & Phelps.

This time, an extra helping of creative thinking was needed — and delivered. “PDRMA members welcomed our staff on-site, of course following state, local, and park district safety protocols. Any visit made during this period was completed observing social distancing and wearing the appropriate protection equipment to keep us and park district staff as safe as possible. Most districts had limited resources to assist our team with access to each building primarily due to the limited amount of seasonal staff. Because of this, we were extremely impressed with the cooperation and willingness to assist our team while on premise.”

To date, Duff & Phelps has appraised:

• 152 members.
• 2,016 buildings valued greater than $100,000.
• 4,273 buildings valued less than $100,000.
• 2,531 land improvement sites.
• 13 historical sites.

What next?

Members who have completed appraisals will soon get a draft report from Duff & Phelps to review and approve before the appraisal company forwards the valuation information to PDRMA. We’ll merge that data with legacy data from AssetMAXX, so we — and members — can access it directly.

“It’s important to have accurate information about all member properties, so we’ll be asking every PDRMA Property/Casualty member to verify its equipment and vehicle/fleet schedules annually,” explains Tim Conlon, PDRMA Property/Casualty Program Director. “We also may ask some members to verify their property schedules each year. As a best practice, the recommendation is to do full appraisals every five years, which is what our plan is going forward.”