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Assessor's Office Rolls Out Long-term Strategic Plan

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PHOENIX (May 13, 2022) - The Maricopa County Assessor’s Office has completed a significant long-term strategic plan designed to make the organization as efficient and responsive as possible to county residents.

The strategic plan centered on defining the Mission, Vision, and Core Values of the Assessor's Office with the goal of being a “Best in Class” organization focused on Fairness and Equity, Innovation and Efficiency, and a One Team approach.

“The goal was to create a unified direction that will enhance our work, improve how we serve, and define how we perform as one team,” said Maricopa County Assessor Eddie Cook. “This plan is a roadmap to serve Maricopa County more efficiently and effectively to provide the best possible customer experience. The plan was the result of a collaborative effort of colleagues across various functions over the course of many months.”

The “Best in Class” model will be achieved through six Core Initiatives:

• Customer Experience: The office will make every effort to ensure that the public has a positive experience with our organization and leave with a better understanding of the assessment and valuation process.
• Digital First: The office introduced its Digital First initiative in 2020 with the goal of delivering an outstanding experience that is more efficient for its constituents and team members. This initiative focuses on providing a more effective, convenient way for the public to engage with the office’s services.
• Process Development and Improvement: The office will continually work to innovate and simplify its processes, and will optimize this approach by implementing the elements of a process development framework. The goal is to reduce errors, costs, and the training time for new team members.
• Proactive Workload Management: The office will implement benchmarks and refine processes and teams to ensure customer needs are met. This proactive approach to management will emphasize the use of technology and tools to predict potential issues before they arise and streamline workflow.
• Culture Development: The plan includes efforts that will empower the office’s team and build upon their expertise to become one of Arizona’s best places to work.
• Team Development and Collaboration: The office will work to build synergy among team members by encouraging cooperation and building trust and understanding through the intentional sharing of knowledge, as well as encouraging the promotion of team members from within.

We have an entire website dedicated to the Strategic Plan which can be viewed here.

The plan was unveiled in a series of meetings that took place over three days at the end of April and is the first strategic plan ever created by the office. The Maricopa County Assessor’s Office has right around 300 employees, about half of whom are appraisers working on land value.

“I would like to thank all of the team members that were involved in shaping this plan,” said Maricopa County Assessor Eddie Cook. “Our office is full of talented people who serve the public with exceptional skill every day, and this strategic plan will help enhance their work and provide even better service to Maricopa County residents.”
Each year, the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office values over 1.8 million real and personal property parcels and accounts. The property values determined by the office serve as the foundation for fairly allocating more than $650 million in property tax revenue for Maricopa County and its cities, towns, and districts last year.

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Notices of Value Issued February 25

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More than 1.6 million Notices of Value will be mailed or sent to Maricopa County property owners via eNotice Friday, Feb. 25. Each year, the Maricopa County Assessor's Office identifies, locates, and values each parcel in the fourth and fastest-growing county in the country.

Property values in Arizona are set a year ahead to allow for an extensive appeal process. Unlike other forms of taxation, property taxes allow residents to appeal their individual values and testify on how much revenue should be raised by tax jurisdictions.

“I’m especially proud of the effort our team has put in this year as we also worked hard to meet our goals laid out in our newly released strategic plan,” said Assessor Eddie Cook. “As they do every year, our team went above and beyond to complete statutory requirements, established innovative workflows, and maintained a healthy, fiscally conservative budget.”

Median property values for single-family residential homes in Maricopa County rose for the tenth consecutive year, and all property types increased for the 2023 tax year. Apartments saw the largest increase of 40% while commercial property increased the least by 17.7%.

Property owners have until April 26 to file an administrative appeal with the Assessor’s Office if they believe their property was improperly valued or misclassified. Last year, our office completed a total of 2,732 appeals. It was also the first year property owners and their representatives could submit an appeal through an online portal. Nearly 1,100 appeals were filed electronically.

“We strive to be a best-in-class organization, and our online appeal process is just one way we are meeting that goal,” said Assessor Cook. “As stated in our strategic plan’s Digital First initiative, we are placing a heavy emphasis on providing a more effective, convenient way for the public to engage with our services. We look forward to bringing more systems and applications online as the year progresses.”

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View Our Strategic Plan!

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It has taken months of hard work to get us to this day as we officially release our plan to innovate and enhance our work, how we serve, and how we perform as one team. This plan is our roadmap to serve Maricopa County more efficiently and effectively to provide the best possible customer experience.

You can read the plan in one of two ways: by PDF or by visiting the innovative website that will be regularly updated to track our progress and success.

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Educational Video: E-Notices

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The Maricopa County Assessor's Office offers electronic notices, or eNotices, for Notices of Valuation. Signing up for an eNotice is easy to use, convenient, provides archives, and saves the County and its taxpayers money by reducing printing and postage costs.

Our latest educational video explains how to sign up for our eNotice service.

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Educational Video: Property Deeds

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Our office processes thousands of property ownership documents such as deeds every month.

That means our office receives a lot of questions about property ownership and how long the process of transferring ownership will take.

Our latest educational video explains the steps that our office takes when we receive a property deed and why the process often takes days or weeks for the change to be seen on our website.

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Honoring Veterans

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Approximately 10% of the county workforce is made up of active or retired military personnel. Some of those team members work right here at the Assessor’s Office, including Chief Deputy Assessor Dawn Marie Buckland and IT Senior Manager Troy Ares.

We spoke with them to get their thoughts on what Veterans Day means to them.


To all veterans, thank you for your continued service to our office, our county, and our country!

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Leadership Presents Project Update to Board of Supervisors

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Monday morning, Assessor Eddie Cook, Chief Deputy Assessor Dawn Marie Buckland, and Chief of Innovation and Technology Mark Kramer updated the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on the status of our replacement appraisal system, MARS.

We were proud to share that it is currently undergoing testing by all Assessor team members, meeting deadlines to roll out early 2022, and is on budget.

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Educational Video: Personal Exemptions

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Thousands of Maricopa County property owners utilize our personal exemption program, saving them money in property taxes.

This program is available to certain widows, widowers, and totally disabled persons who meet other income and property value requirements.

Our latest educational video takes a look into this program. This video will help these individuals understand the qualifications and what the program will do for their property.

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Educational Video Series: Notice of Change

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We mailed approximately 45,000 Notices of Change to property owners on Tuesday, Sept. 28. Arizona law requires county Assessors to send this supplemental notice in cases where a property has undergone new construction, additions to, deletions from or splits or consolidations that occurred after the initial Notice of Value was sent.

The Notice of Change is the topic of our next educational video, as well! This video explains why a property owner receives this notice and the timeline for appealing.