
During the IAAO 85th Annual Conference, Vision users in Chesapeake received special recognition for joining an elite group of fewer than 50 assessment offices who have received the highly regarded CEAA.
Well known by members of the IAAO, the CEAA (Certificate of Excellence in Assessment Administration) is a particularly challenging and rigorous self-conducted evaluation of appraisal best practices as defined in the IAAO publication Assessment Practices: Self-Evaluation Guide.
Assessment offices have achieved the IAAO CEAA
Here’s what Greg Daniels, Chesapeake’s Real Estate Assessor, had to say during his recent interview with Chesapeake TV Video:
“We think this is a very big honor for our department. It shows that we met a very rigorous test set by the IAAO in various categories – anything from how we budget, to how we do analysis work, how we do our valuations, etc. We’re very proud of the honor.
They were looking at just about every category of what we do on a daily basis, so we had to answer questions about how we do assessments, how we do mapping, how we process customer service, the budgeting aspect of our department, it was very very detailed.
Fifteen out of our twenty nine staff members actually contributed to the research and the work. It took us about six months from start to finish to submit this. It’s a very rigorous program and we have to re-certify every 5 years.”

As members may know, the IAAO has made a strong point of encouraging offices to integrate their best practices into their workplace, and highly recommends that each municipality consider pursuing this documented program of excellence in assessment administration.
However, for some communities, outdated technology may be playing a factor in their decision to delay entrance to the program. Luckily for Chesapeake this was not the case.

“Our Vision CAMA solution helped us achieve the CEAA by providing features such as Mass Update, Appeal Tracking, Mailer History and Income & Expense request tracking. We utilized the real-time GIS and Report features to assure our data was accurate. By utilizing the features of the Vision CAMA solution, we were able to assure accurate and equitable assessments.”
Based on this information we can begin to get a sense of the level of work and dedication required to achieve the CEAA.
So, what motivated their office to achieve the CEAA?
“The Office of the Real Estate Assessor wanted to be recognized as a leader by our citizens and peers within the assessment profession. The leadership team is very competitive and over the past several years, other assessment jurisdictions within the region and the Commonwealth of Virginia have earned this honor and we felt it was our responsibility to not be left behind. We had just upgraded our computer-assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) system to Vision Government Solutions so we felt this was the proper time to accomplish a new challenge.”