Public Management Bulletin #17

Property tax officials, like many other local government staff in different roles, have professional reasons to visit homes, businesses, and construction sites every day. Their work positions them to see indicators of sex and labor trafficking in the communities they serve. This article will address what human trafficking is, what it looks like in our communities, how property tax officials can recognize the indicators of human trafficking, and how they should respond if they see those indicators. 

It may be rare to see indicators of human trafficking, but the crime is serious enough to warrant building awareness among local government staff. The inspiration for this article came from a county tax-office appraiser who attended a training session about human trafficking and described inspecting a large home that had a basement filled with bunk beds. The beds did not appear to be for the benefit of visiting grandchildren.