PLEASE NOTE: The Department MUST be a signatory to all trending, reassessment, new construction review, and assessment software contracts. Such a contract that lacks the Department’s approval is invalid.
MEMORANDUM
TO: All County Assessors
FROM: Micah G. Vincent, Commissioner
RE: UPDATE to October 2, 2013 Memorandum entitled “Form Contracts for Annual Adjustments and Cyclical Reassessment”
DATE: November 14, 2013
On October 2, 2013, the Department of Local Government Finance (“Department”) issued revised form contracts for annual adjustment (trending) services and introduced a new form contract for cyclical reassessment services, as well as a new form contract for combined annual adjustment and cyclical reassessment services.
The Department has tweaked these form contracts to provide additional options for counties. These adjustments concern several issues, including new construction, data entry, performance retainers, and the provision of office space.
The Department is also releasing a revised assessment software contract and a “new construction review” contract.
PLEASE NOTE: The Department MUST be a signatory to all trending, reassessment, new construction review, and assessment software contracts. Such a contract that lacks the Department’s approval is invalid.
These revised form contracts, which are posted at http://www.in.gov/dlgf/6854.htm, are available exclusively as “fillable” PDFs. The appropriate county officials and contractor representatives must type the requisite information into the fields, then print out the contract and personally sign it at a properly-advertised meeting. The original contract with the parties’ signatures should be mailed or hand-delivered to the Department. It is NOT necessary to overnight the contract to the Department as this only adds to the expenses charged by the contractors to the counties. Do NOT staple the contract or put it into any kind of binding. The Department will retain the original copy and will mail one photocopy to the county and one to the contractor. Do NOT send more than one copy of the contract to the Department.
PLEASE NOTE THAT PER IC 6-1.1-4-20, A CONTRACT FOR CYCLICAL REASSESSMENT SERVICES MAY NOT BE ENTERED INTO BY ANY PARTY UNTIL AFTER JANUARY 1, 2014. Counties are not prohibited from accepting bids for cyclical reassessment work prior to January 1, 2014. However, if the Department receives a cyclical reassessment contract entered into before January 1, 2014, it will be rejected outright.
These form contracts have been prescribed by the Department and approved by the Office of the Attorney General. The Department will NOT accept or approve any modifications to the prescribed form contracts. The form contracts have been designed as “fillable” PDFs to prevent any alterations from being made. Counties and contractors may NOT attempt to copy and paste from the form contracts, nor may they manually copy the form contracts. Should the Department receive any contracts that differ from the prescribed versions and/or that are not the “fillable” PDF versions, they will be rejected outright. Again, each form contract is to be used as-is.
With regard to amending contracts, if a contract is for a specific year, it cannot be amended to cover additional years to circumvent bidding out the contract. Moreover, a contract for one service cannot be amended to include unrelated services. Counties should keep these factors in mind when advertising bids and entering into contracts. The Department will strictly enforce these policies and will reject any non-compliant addendum.
Questions may be directed to Staff Attorney Mike Duffy at 317-233-9219 or mduffy@dlgf.in.gov.
