07/26/2021 Assessment Community Weekly

Hi All. Don’t miss the important announcement below about the Online Assessment Community (OAC) transition, which will happen tomorrow, July 27. The OAC will be unavailable for several hours.  

Before creating your school tax file . . . 

Avoid problems down the road. Make sure to use the correct STAR Exemption Amount, and that the savings do not exceed the Maximum STAR savings. 

ICYMI: Final Roll Corrections Report

Report #7 is now available to municipalities that submitted their final rolls by July 10. For details, see last week’s announcement. You can access the report in the Online Assessment Community. After logging in and agreeing to the security contract, select Menu, then STAR Reports, then Report #7. 

Wondering why Report #10 doesn’t appear in the list above? That’s the NYS Tax Return Deceased Report. Since, by law, only county directors can access that report, it does not appear on the Assessor menu.

IVP is back and ready for 2022!

Thank you for your patience while we updated the IVP Tool. The transition is complete, and you can begin entering enrollments and changes for 2022.

Reminder: Review your sales reports

This is a great time to begin reviewing your sales reports in the Online Assessment Community. The deadline is August 31, but don’t delay. Your timely review is very important because we’ll use the sales data to begin the process of calculating 2021 equalization rates and RARs.

For more information, see Sales usability criteria.

On the arms-length report, there is a column which indicates whether the sale is COD/RAR usable. If you find a mistake or need to correct a sale, follow these instructions:

• RPS users: within your RPS file, make the correction and then re-transmit it by going to Standard Reports > Sales > Sales Transmittal Report. Please email the RPS035 to ORPTS.saleint@tax.ny.gov. The ORPTS sales database and online sales reports will be updated with the corrections.
• If you submit paper reports, use Form RP-5217 ACR, Sale Correction Form. Email the completed forms to ORPTS.saleint@tax.ny.gov or mail them to:

NYS TAX DEPARTMENT – ORPTS
ATTN: DATA MANAGEMENT UNIT
W A HARRIMAN STATE CAMPUS – BLDG. 8A
ALBANY, NY 12227-0801

Last call for advisory appraisals for standard calendar munis!

If you’re conducting a reassessment, and you expect to request a utility advisory appraisal, the deadline to submit Form RP-7021, Utility Advisory Appraisal Request is  270 days prior to your tentative roll date (by August 1 for localities using the standard assessment calendar). Please include a request for each year of a reassessment cycle.

New Online Assessment Community!

If you’re a long-time assessor, you know that the blue New York State graphic has been a mainstay of the Online Assessment Community (OAC) for decades. 

Well, change is good, and it’s in the air! 

Tomorrow, we’ll launch a new OAC landing page and menu. This will align your secure website with current technologies and provide us with the flexibility to enhance the OAC as we move forward.

Will I log in the same way? 

Yes. You will still come to the OAC landing page to log in. We encourage you to bookmark that webpage, but do not bookmark the login page itself. 

If you do have a bookmark to the login page, please delete it. The login link will change. But you don’t have to worry about that if you bookmark the OAC landing page.

Will all of the applications in the OAC still be available? 

Absolutely! In addition, you’ll now find the list of RPSV4 updates in the OAC. And keep your eyes open for a new application in the upcoming weeks!

What will change?

After you log in, you’ll immediately have a security contract to review. After agreeing to the contract, you’ll be taken to a new OAC main page.

To access all of the applications, select Menu in the upper left corner. (We’re told this is called a hamburger menu icon. It makes us hungry.)

A menu specific to your user type (assessor, county director, etc.) will display.

You can:

• select an application, or 
• expand your options by selecting an item with an arrow next to it.

To choose a different application, you’ll select the hamburger menu again.

Note: Older style applications (taxable state-owned land, sales reports, etc.) will open in a new tab or browser window. Return to the initial OAC window to select a new application.

Chrome and Edge users:  You will have to select ‘Send anyway’ and it may come up twice before it lets you continue.

Mozilla Firefox users: You will have to select ‘Continue’ and it may come up twice before it lets you continue.

App Access Locked: This is an error message that the users may see if they are not authorized to have access to an application.

What’s next? 

You should expect some downtime while the transition is taking place tomorrow, Tuesday, July 27. We will let you know—hopefully Wednesday morning—when all systems are a go. 

Troubleshooting

If you experience technical difficulties logging into your Online Assessment Community account, or you receive repeat security warning messages, we suggest clearing your cookies, temporary files, and history from your browser. To learn how, see Browser requirements and troubleshooting tips.