Budgeting concerns at appraisal district
The Cass County appraisal district board of directors met Tuesday to discuss and approve a budget for fiscal year 2019-2020.
Susan Jackson, the board’s chairperson, called the meeting to order and deferred to the district’s chief appraiser, Anita White, for presentation of the final budget. White began by detailing changes to the preliminary budget that was submitted in May. Since then, concerns about a shortage of staff prompted a proposed budget increase to reflect the salary of a third appraiser. There are currently two.
White said in defense of the proposed increase, “I realize we to keep our budget down but we are short staffed. We have 31,064 residential parcels and IAAO standards states that each appraiser should have 5000 parcels a piece to get the job done and do it correctly and in a timely manner. If you take those and divide them up by three years because we work on a third each year that’s better, but the appraiser is still responsible for covering their territory, going out in the field, coming back and helping get it put into the system.”
Jackson returned, “So if they do it every three years, that’s about 10000 parcels a year, and we got two appraisers and they’re recommending 5000. We’re not too far out of whack there.”
Currently, the appraisal district has contracts with two independent appraisal firms for agricultural and commercial properties. Contracting for residential parcels was considered and bid according to White, “Eagle appraisal quoted for Linden Kildare for the first year is $85000. That is to do the field work—we would still have to do the data entry.”
After some discussion as to whether the district was competitive enough with surrounding districts regarding compensation and retention issues, Jackson said of the latter,. “the last employee you had did not leave because of salary. She left because Upshur County rides two to a vehicle and my understanding is that’s all we do here. We literally have one appraiser here because they ride together. Even right here on the streets in Linden, in some of the safest places, they’re together. So one of them is doing the work while one of them is watching and only one of them can input. So we got two appraisers but we got one doing the work.”
“If you’re wanting to hire a third appraiser, then who’s going to hold their hand?”, Jackson said of the proposed third appraiser. She continued, “If we got them together, on two salaries, I’m seeing we’re spending $85000 and that’s literally to get to work with one appraiser. You got two people in the field, let’s say they do 20 houses in a day. You got a full time input clerk. How long is it going to take her to make changes on 20 houses? Not long.”
According to White, the practice of riding two to a vehicle is for safety purposes but agreed that there are times when it is unnecessary. She went on to say, “I agree with you all that we need to divide up but I still think we need one more appraiser because that’s what we’ve had in the past. I know when I got here we should have been generating the notice of appraised value. According to the state property tax code those need to go out the first week of April. They were not anywhere near being finished with data input and instead of going out the first week of April it was
May 22. That threw us behind. It’s a constant race the clock.”
When White was asked if hiring a third appraiser would increase efficiency, Jackson interjected, “We had another appraiser up til February, we didn’t get it together because we should have had it certified the first of April. That little bit of time didn’t cause the fiasco that we have. I know what did cause it.” Jackson explained that compensatory time, also known as comp time, has exacerbated the problem of inefficiency. Comp time is compensation in the form of days off instead of overtime pay. The unprecedented amounts of time accrued and when that time is used has posed additional challenges for the board, “We have employees here who have as high as 400 hours of comp time. All this comp time when we’re supposed to be doing this stuff in the spring is when they’re getting these comp time hours and we should be out on these properties in the fall like right now there all off on comp time. So they’re working about half a year. Plus we’re working two appraisers only. Our handbook says that we do not pay the comp time until it’s approved by the chief appraiser.”
Jackson went on to say, “If you look at the charts, you’ll see where it’s accumulated and it’s all in the spring when we’re supposed to be certifying and when we’re supposed to be in the field you’ll see where it’s all taken. So we got two appraisers on one property. They’re getting time and a half so they’re not here for every hour they’re reporting comp time, unapproved comp time. I don’t know who wasn’t monitoring this. There’s four employees here. I don’t know who they are.”
In response, White said, “I did not approve. I was aware at times when they were coming in early, staying late, and was trying to get the work done. We’ve got a vicious cycle going and I see a problem with the comp time but I also see a problem with a shortage of employees.”
Jackson did not agree, “We had three appraisers. Sorry, I don’t agree with you. We’ve got a hell of a problem right here. I talked to two chief appraisers today in other appraisal districts. If they have a customer or somebody in the front where it’s unavoidable, she’ll approve comp time and make them take it within that month. The problem is, you’re trying to do all your work in three months and you’re off the rest of the year. And you’ve got 80 hours of vacation to take and we give you six hours of this sick leave and I guarantee you there ain’t nobody here that hadn’t took every bit of it that got it accumulated. We’re not here long enough to do anything. This proves it.”
A secretary for the district was in attendance, and she announced that she had accrued a number of comp time hours as well. She explained that the previous chief appraiser was letting the current deputy chief appraiser approve comp time hours to the other employees, “We got behind. The comptroller’s office came in here last year and we didn’t have homestead exemptions on a lot of property. We were having to do that. We had homestead applications coming in here like crazy. I could not even keep up with them. There’s no way. I’m trying to do homesteads, all the new ones. I’m doing all of the exempt properties. I’m doing all of the ag and so that’s where all of mine came in.”
“All these appraisal districts I’ve talked to, they have to do the same thing and they don’t have that problem. Here in 2017, here’s 168 and a half hours in one month, one employee accumulated. It’s a track record of a problem. This is ridiculous and it’s embarrassing.”, Jackson replied.
The board discussed the implications of having to pay comp time all at once to employees who are owed time but choose to leave or are terminated. Currently, there are no allowances in the budget for such a scenario. One that Jackson characterized as, “a ticking time bomb”.
Jackson recommended a freeze on the accrual and use of comp time until the board could adopt a new policy. The board approved.
White told the board that she would press the issue with the current appraisers regarding the freeze on comp time and restrictions on riding along as a team versus independently., “I can’t promise you that we might not have some employees walk out the door.”
Jackson, “If they’re going to do these kinds of things, are they really worth having? I’ve talked to two other appraisal districts, our leadership, something’s wrong here. We can call Eagle Appraisal for $80,000 and fix it all.
White’s employment with the district began in April of this year. She cited long-standing issues with previous and current personnel as the reason for the district’s laxity on the use of comp time.
The budget was approved in keeping with the state’s Sept. 15 deadline with the caveat that amendments are being considered.
A request for additional comment was made to White to which she responded, “I am excited to be the new Chief Appraiser at Cass County and look forward to serving the area. There is some work cut out for me, but I look forward to the challenge and believe with the right attitude and some assertiveness the issues at hand can and will be addressed in a positive manner. I have met many nice people from the area and look forward to meeting more. I have an open office policy for any and all property owner’s and jurisdictions of Cass County.”
The appraisal district’s board meets every month or every other month depending on the number and urgency of agenda items.