Brady seeks second term focused on transparency

Four years ago, Jada Brady was elect­ed prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion admin­is­tra­tor in a close race against a Democratic incum­bent. If she wins the Republican pri­ma­ry next month, she’ll face that same for­mer PVA again in the gen­er­al elec­tion in November.

If elect­ed to a sec­ond term, Brady wants to con­tin­ue empha­siz­ing what the office does and how its deci­sions affect landown­ers and their local governments.

“I came into this office to bring trans­paren­cy … to real­ly bring the com­mu­ni­ty in on what the PVA stands for and what we do for them,” she said. “I believe I have done that in the past three and a half years, and I want to con­tin­ue that.”

The prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion admin­is­tra­tor is both a state employ­ee and an elect­ed coun­ty offi­cial. Her job is to assess prop­er­ty, both real and per­son­al, at fair cash or mar­ket val­ue unless specif­i­cal­ly exempt­ed, and to deter­mine the amount of tax own­ers are to pay. Property own­ers can appeal their assess­ments if they think there has been a mistake.

Although the PVA and her staff are “to a cer­tain extent” employ­ees of the Kentucky Department of Revenue, Brady thinks it’s good that the office is an elect­ed posi­tion. If the state were to send some­one from Frankfort, that per­son wouldn’t know the coun­ty or what goes into deter­min­ing fair cash val­ue for dif­fer­ent parts of the community.

For exam­ple, she said, the medi­an cash val­ue in Clark County is $242,000.

“Now, I know, when you go to cer­tain areas, that is a legit­i­mate num­ber, but I also know that when you go into oth­er areas, that is not a legit­i­mate num­ber,” she said.

“I do feel like it needs to be some­body from the area because they have a great deal more knowl­edge” about the com­mu­ni­ty, she said.

The require­ment to assess prop­er­ty at its mar­ket val­ue is a state con­sti­tu­tion­al mandate.

“I am very much a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ist at heart,” Brady said. “I think you always have to come back to it.”

“I think my job as PVA has been to edu­cate the com­mu­ni­ty on why we do what we do and inform them about the con­sti­tu­tion, how we go about assess­ing prop­er­ty, and then on the oth­er side of it, where the mon­ey is divid­ed at the end of the day,” she said.

Tax rates are set by local gov­ern­ments such as the coun­ty fis­cal court, the city com­mis­sion, and the school board. The rates and assess­ments togeth­er deter­mine the tax bill, with cer­tain exemp­tions allowed. For exam­ple, church prop­er­ty is not taxed, and home­own­ers aged 65 or old­er or who are dis­abled can receive an assess­ment reduction.

In recent years, assess­ments have risen because prop­er­ty val­ues in the coun­ty have increased, not because rates have.

“Right now, we have the low­est tax rates we’ve had in a decade,” Brady said.

In fact, because of a 1980 law, prop­er­ty tax rev­enue is lim­it­ed to a 4 per­cent annu­al increase, so gov­ern­ments must some­times low­er the rate to stay with­in that lim­it. That does not apply to new prop­er­ty added through growth, but growth affects oth­er prop­er­ty values.

“We’re see­ing a lot of spillover growth” from Lexington and Fayette County, which have strict ordi­nances designed to pre­serve farm­land, Brady explained.

That is why there are so many large homes being built in the Becknerville area, but also why even mobile home parks are see­ing their val­ues increase.

And on the oth­er side of town, along the new bypass, land prices are ris­ing as well. With a new exten­sion from the Mountain Parkway to the London and Somerset region, “growth is lit­er­al­ly hap­pen­ing all around us,” the PVA said.

Brady said one thing she would like to do dur­ing her sec­ond term is get rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the city and coun­ty gov­ern­ments, the school dis­trict, the library, health, and exten­sion boards, and oth­er par­tic­i­pants to sit down togeth­er and talk about how their orga­ni­za­tions ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty, what their needs are, and then come up with rea­son­able tax rates.

“It might be a pipe dream, but I feel like we’re all inte­gral parts of the com­mu­ni­ty, and we should work as one,” she said.

Brady, 44, was born in Indianapolis and grew up all over, but she has fam­i­ly roots in Clark County.

“We moved eleven times before I turned 11,” she said.

She grad­u­at­ed from George Rogers Clark in 1999, took a break after high school, and earned a bachelor’s degree in busi­ness from what is now the University of the Cumberlands 10 years later.

Brady is mar­ried to Chris Christy, who is a native of Clark County.

They attend Christ Church of Winchester, and she is the leader of an American Heritage Girls group of 12–18-year-olds. She is also active in the Winchester Kiwanis Club and, for fun, works at Whiskey & Wiles, host­ing mur­der-mys­tery events.

“I’ve always been a Republican,” she mentioned.

In 2020, Brady ran her first polit­i­cal race as a write-in can­di­date for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive but lost to Ryan Dotson. Two years lat­er, she beat PVA Jason “Apple” Neely by a few votes. This year, she is fac­ing a chal­lenge in the Republican pri­ma­ry from Allan Curtis, a for­mer coun­ty road super­vi­sor. The win­ner will face Neely, a Democrat, in the gen­er­al election.