County approves nominees for appraisal board
The Commissioners’ Court held a special session on Thursday in which it approved a list of nominees for the appraisal board of directors.
Before their discussion began about the proposed nominees, Judge Becky Wilbanks invited members of the public to speak. Baker Bledsoe of Linden addressed the court.
Bledsoe attended the appraisal board meeting on Sept.10 and expressed his concern with the board’s discretion, “The topics discussed in this public forum shocked and profoundly disturbed me. The primary objective, according to the agenda for the meeting, was to approve the budget for fiscal year 2019-2020. However, a discussion ensued regarding hiring an additional appraiser to complement the two currently in place. This led to revelations regarding inappropriate working patterns. Much discussion ensued regarding either the paying of overtime or granting compensatory time off for employees accruing this extra time. My impression was that this type of discussion should have been handled in executive session rather than in a public forum.”
Bledsoe continued, “Another problem I have discovered is that the former chief appraiser failed to conduct a legal election of appraisal board members in 2017 which resulted in board members at that time continuing to serve illegally throughout 2018. It appears to me that the chairman of the appraisal board, who was elected and appointed to the board by this court, is responsible for allowing these very serious problems to develop and continue over the past few years. It is also my opinion based on facts that I have become aware of is that some members of this court have known of these problems and chose to ignore them. You now have the opportunity to correct some of this oversight by nominating and electing a more qualified and responsible individual to contribute to the future operations of our appraisal board and better serve all the citizens of Cass County.”
The current appraisal board members are Susan Jackson, Byron Terry, Jr., Angela Young, Robert Steger, Jackie Yates, Bryan Baggett, Joe Wall, and David Cothren.
Wilbanks motioned the court to nominate Byron Terry, Jr., Robert Steger, Jackie Yates, Bryan Baggett, Joe Wall, David Cothren, and Scottie Bates. The motion carried with commissioners Brett Fitts, Joe Shaddix, and Darrell Godwin. Commissioner Paul Cothren recused himself--citing his relation to David Cothren.
In a follow-up interview, Bledsoe explained that he had visited the appraisal office to request the results of the 2018 vote but was told that those records disappeared when Jordan Klein vacated his position as chief appraiser. What Bledsoe received instead were the results from the 2011 election and a letter from Klein, dated September 28, 2018, that requested nominations from the taxing units. Klein failed to execute an election in 2017 and sought to do so in 2018. In the letter he claimed, “I erroneously thought the election process began in even years, when in fact the terms begin on January first of even numbered years.”
The election of 2018 resulted in one director’s removal. However, the details of that vote and every election since 2011 are unclear.
A request to confirm Bledsoe’s account and to retrieve the alleged missing information from the current chief appraiser was acknowledged but went unanswered.
A phone call and subsequent email to the board’s chair, Susan Jackson, to seek explanation as to why the board failed to remind its chief appraiser that an election was to be held in 2017 and why there is no documentation to support every election since 2011 went unanswered.
In odd-numbered years, each unit of Cass County, which include the county and all cities and school districts, offer one to seven candidates for nomination. The presiding officer of each unit submits the nominees by written resolution to the chief appraiser before October 30. On October 30, each unit will receive a ballot listing the nominees. The ballots are due back to the chief appraiser before December
15. Each unit is allowed a number of votes based on its relative tax levy. They may cast all their votes for one candidate or distribute them among candidates for any number of directorships. The chief appraiser will submit the results to the taxing units before December 31.
A request has been made of the chief appraiser to provide the results of the current election, by taxing unit and its vote allocation, upon its completion.
The appraisal board is scheduled to convene Tuesday, October 8.