Warren County, which continues to experience rapid residential and commercial growth and a pressing need to keep pace with fast-changing real estate values, is instead facing uncertainty about the functioning of the county Property Valuation Administrator’s office.

Complaints about the office – some from real estate professionals and others on social media and even on file with the Kentucky Department of Revenue that oversees county PVAs – focus primarily on how the office seems to have fallen behind on assessments of newly developed properties since current PVA Joshua Hardy took office in December of 2022.

Hardy, a Republican, defeated Democrat incumbent PVA Susan Oliver Lewis in the November 2022 general election, despite questions about his qualifications for the office. Hardy had worked in real estate but never worked in a PVA office.

The starting annual salary for the Warren County PVA is about $110,000.

Now, Hardy has reportedly seen staffing of his office reduced by more than half since he took over from Lewis.

One county government insider, who asked not to be identified, said the PVA office has gone from 13 employees down to four since Hardy took office.

The result, according to those familiar with local real estate valuations, is that most new residential and commercial construction isn’t getting re-assessed in a timely manner. Some developed properties, in fact, are still listed on the PVA website at raw land value.

“What I’m hearing is that there are no inspections of new homes,” said Bob Branstetter, who served as Warren County PVA for 14 years before retiring in 2021. “I think he (Hardy) thinks he can do everything on the computer and not get out in the field.”

That can create problems for those who rely on accurate information from the PVA office, and it can ultimately erode the property tax collections that fund county government.

As Nick McWhorter of Bowling Green’s McWhorter Appraisal said in a text message: “The records do not seem to be as up-to-date as they used to be, and the sketches were removed completely from the site.”

Incomplete or outdated information on the PVA website, McWhorter said, “adds extra work for an appraiser as we must have at least the age, the living area and previous sales of each property in order to properly fill out our reports.”

McWhorter said the Warren County PVA website is still “better than some of the smaller counties we appraise in, but there are many we use that are much more thorough with much more information.

“I feel we have taken a step back instead of forward in recent years.”

Another residential real estate appraiser, Stephanie Greer of Riverview Appraisals, responded to a Facebook post critical of the PVA website by posting: “No sketches or anything, behind on sales, limited info on previous sales. Me along with other appraisers are not happy.”

Neither, it seems, are former employees who have left the PVA office.

One former member of the PVA staff went so far as to file a complaint with the Kentucky Department of Revenue. The Daily News obtained that complaint through an open records request, although the employee’s name had been redacted.

Echoing some of the concerns expressed by local real estate professionals, the former employee said the PVA office isn’t adequately staffed to keep up with the demands arising from the county’s rapid growth.

“The number of permits for new houses and apartments has doubled since I started working here, and we’ve had the fewest number of people in the field crew over the last few years,” the ex-employee wrote in his complaint.

That lack of manpower in the PVA office, said a county official who asked not to be named, “is having an impact on county revenue.”

Hardy didn’t respond to an email inquiring about his office’s staffing for real estate inspections, but he did weigh in on how he has responded to the problems arising out of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s new KAVIS (Kentucky Automated Vehicle Information System) computer program for vehicle registrations that has created problems throughout the state.

“One of the key improvements we implemented was transitioning the office’s tax roll software to a system with more automation tools,” Hardy said in an email. “We leverage technology where possible to enhance our services and make processes more user-friendly.”

Hardy said the automation tools have helped address issues with KAVIS.

“Earlier in January, we successfully cleared more than 25,000 tax district issues, a task that would have taken months to complete manually,” Hardy said.

As the grumblings from real estate professionals and former PVA staffers attest, that reliance on technology isn’t addressing what seems to be a backlog in real estate evaluations that is having an impact on county revenue.

According to Branstetter, the PVA office must ultimately answer to the Department of Revenue, but that can be a lengthy process.

“Every year, the state is supposed to do audits and give you a write-up,” he said. “If he’s not doing inspections and stuff, the state can step in and do a blanket assessment across the county.”

Because the state audits are so infrequent, any shortcomings in the PVA office may not be addressed before the 2026 election.

If Hardy chooses to run for reelection, he could face Lewis again – potentially in the May primary instead of the November general election.

Lewis, who was a Democrat when she was appointed by Gov. Andy Beshear to complete Branstetter’s unexpired term, has switched her party affiliation to Republican and is vowing to run for the office in 2026.