The following major findings are reported:

• The number of assessing units has declined considerably, from 1,546 in 1983 to 1,092 in 2004. This decline is primarily the result of villages discontinuing the assessing function, but it also includes coordinated assessing programs initiated by 98 former assessing units since 1995.
  
  
• The number of assessing units hiring assessors who are also employed by other assessing units had increased to 449 by 2004.
  
  
• The percentage of assessing units choosing to appoint rather than elect assessors has risen steadily, from 48 percent in 1983 to 83 percent in 2004.
  
  
• Reassessment project activity has increased substantially, from about 50 projects annually in the early 1980s to over 300 projects per year at the present time. There were 184 in 2000, an all-time record for reassessment activity at the time. The total has increased to 360 in 2004.
  
  
• Levels of assessment equity, as indicated by implementation of a recent reassessment or as measured by the coefficient of dispersion (COD) in nonreassessment jurisdictions, also have improved substantially. Whereas about 12 percent of assessment rolls were found to be uniform in the 1980 survey, approximately 82 percent were found to be uniform in the 2004 survey.
  
  
• The number of assessing units with equitable rolls that are maintaining assessments at a relatively high percentage of value (70 percent of market value is used in the report) based on the 2004 survey now stands at 707, up from a low of 54 in the 1989 survey.
  
  
• In the great majority of the state’s more than 700 school districts, taxes may now be apportioned between at least two municipalities using equalization rates of 100 percent.
  
  
• The number of ORPS advisory appraisals of complex properties increased to about 2,000 in 2004, nearly four times as many as completed annually a decade ago.