Doing assessment work using fewer resources and creating a smaller carbon footprint is the theme of this year’s Earth Day at the King County Assessor’s Office.

“We’re using less fuel, less paper, and less office space,” said King County Assessor John Wilson, as he outlined his office’s contribution to the overall effort of King County government to be more “green.”

“Earth Day is a good time to take stock of how we can respect and protect our environment both natural and built-up,” said Wilson. He highlighted five areas where his office has made progress in environmental stewardship:

Improvements to transportation planning have resulted in 2,500 less hours driving on streets and roads each year department-wide, saving gasoline, and reducing carbon emissions.

Improvements to the Assessor’s website have also reduced transportation impacts – in this case from customers. Making a lot more information available to citizens online has reduced the number of trips to and from the Assessor’s downtown offices to gather information and complete forms. The website improvements increased page views from 300,000 page-views each month to 4 million page views each month.

The introduction of eAppeals has reduced paper usage and trips by appellants. More than50 percent of all appeals are now done on-line through eAppeals, saving time, reams of paper, and travel both for appellants and public officials.

Assessor Wilson is hopeful that the introduction this month of email valuation notices will be as successful as eAppeals. Assessors are required to provide annual notices of assessed valuation changes to each property owner in their jurisdiction. In King County, that amounts to more than 700,000 notices. The Assessor’s Office has already changed the size of the valuation notice from half-sheet to postcard, providing significant postage savings and a 50 percent reduction in paper.  As people choose to receive their annual notices by email, the use of paper notices will continue to decline, requiring less paper and saving additional postage in the bargain.

By consolidating its use of office space, the Department of Assessments has pared its physical footprint in the King County Administration Building from two floors to one.

“This week’s record-setting high temperatures for April are a warm reminder that we all need to do our part to fight climate change,” Wilson said.