Appraisal board convenes in final meeting of the year
The Cass County appraisal board of directors met Tuesday to discuss and act on items before the new year. The meeting was well attended by district employees and members of the public.
Hiring a district auditor, hiring a law firm to review and implement policy with regard to personnel matters, hiring an outside appraisal firm in lieu of hiring additional staff members, appointing appraisal review board members, and a review of the chief appraiser, Anita White, for the second time since October of this year, were items discussed in Tuesday’s meeting.
Dr. F. Jane Kennedy spoke during the public forum before agenda items were discussed to ask the directors who survived the 2019 election to postpone a decision on those items. Directors Cothren and Yates were not in attendance.
“It is my understanding that two of the board members sitting here tonight are only 15 days away from vacating their directorships per the timely 2019 election results. For the record, I believe that the taxing entities did the right thing so I’m going to address you director Wall, director Terry, director Baggett. I strongly urge you to table discussion until the new board members join you and your new chairperson is appointed after January 1st .”
Regarding Anita White’s review, Kennedy said, “This was just done in October, so it is suspect as to why we’re doing one again. I hope this is not the chairperson wielding her authority one last time on her way out the door.
Directors Bryan Baggett, Joe Wall, and Byron Terry, Jr., chose to table discussion and action at the chief appraiser’s urging regarding hiring a district auditor so to wait for additional proposals and the hiring of a law firm based in Austin to review its policy with regard to personnel to allow White time to confer with the assessor’s office about possibly adopting the county’s personnel policies.
Upon request for executive session by Susan Jackson for the chief appraiser review, White insisted that the meeting remain open. Jackson called for a formal review of White because of failure to distribute the meeting agenda. However, White cited technical issues that left the district without the ability to email and with only intermittent voice call capability.
“In the date that the agenda didn’t get shared with you all, we were having issues with our email.” White explained.
Jackson said of White, “It’s been almost non-existent getting anything done since July or August.”
However, White was given a positive review in October and received a $1500 raise in pay.
White said, “I want to tell you something. I want to see this place run in an effective manner. We as the employees of this appraisal district have enough to deal with the property owners, state comptroller, jurisdictions, and then we have to answer to you all and we all have to answer to someone. But it’s so much easier to do it in a non-confrontational way. Let’s tend to business that’s what we’re here for. So if it appears that I tried to avoid sending you something, my apologies, because I can assure you I did not.”
Jackson said, “If you don’t work with your board, you can go metal to metal all day long and it’s going to throw sparks.”
White said, “I’m very appreciative of this board, each and every one of you and I apologize if it seemed that I was trying to withhold something. I was not.”
Jackson stressed that communication was very important between the chief appraiser and the board. She asked Angela Young, the tax assessor, if she had been getting her supplements on time from the appraisal district which are due every few weeks.
White explained that they had been backlogged and that they are in desperate need of additional staff.
Jackson implied that her own dismissal from the board was a coup brought on by the employees of the appraisal district, “Next year, your board, there may be a board member end of the term that y’all, are right in the middle of it. You may despise him and want him off there. They’re still going to serve their term. Still going to be right to the last minute.”
White responded, “Never entered my mind. I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Directors Terry and Wall were visibly frustrated and doubled down on Jackson’s assertion that they are not being kept informed by the chief appraiser and that the deterioration of their relationship with the district falls at White’s feet.
Wall said, “I feel like the employee is trying to take control. That’s my honest opinion.”
Directors Terry and Wall failed to accept ownership of that deterioration and that the blowback from Jackson’s attack on employees in open session at the September 10th meeting was a self-inflicted wound.
Director Baggett was the only board member willing to take that ownership.
He said, “I’m learning, and I would like to know more. Some of us seated at this table have said they don’t feel like they’ve been kept informed. The way I see it is we’re asked to make decisions regarding people’s careers, and we have no idea what they’re supposed to do. And it seemed to me like a lot of this, the last several months that we’ve talked about, a lot of this could have been avoided if we had just either directed you or to ourselves to you guys and said ‘What’s going on?’ And we didn’t do that and if we are the board, [pointing to name placard] it should say ‘the buck stops here’.”
White told the board that her door is always open, and she would be glad to discuss their concerns. However, she pointed out that ex parte communication has its pitfalls.
“We can’t discuss certain things. We can’t discuss value. But as far as the business of this office, yes I would love for you to stop by and visit.”, White said.
To illustrate an inappropriate ex parte communication between board members and employees, White described a recent exchange between her and a director who she would not name.
“I had one board member to tell me that we had mistreated a taxpayer, we owed them a refund, we had double assessed them, and that I better get the refund processed. I communicated with Eagle Appraisal. I communicated with Angie (Angela Young). I communicated with Lacy (deputy chief appraiser). I went through all the documents that I had. Nothing was double assessed. So, I called the taxpayer and I said would you please come in and let’s visit about this. He came in. He sat down at my desk. He was here two hours. I explained to him, I showed him every piece of paper. And he said, ‘Ms. White, you’re right. You don’t owe me a penny.’ And he left with a smile on his face.”
She went on to say of the illegal communication, “I don’t think that was handled properly.”
Newly elected director, Scottie Bates, and former director, Jack Salmon, will join the appraisal board in 2020 and replace Susan Jackson and Robert Stieger.