Changes made to improve Assessor's Office

Bonner County Assessor

I have just completed my first two weeks in office and want to let everyone know about changes, goals and procedures in the Bonner County Assessor's office.

It became very clear to me within a few days that the area we will concentrate on immediately for change and improvement will be in the residential appraisal section of the office. I found no or very few issues with the customer service desk, mobile home department, commercial department, mapping, platting, personal property, data entry or motor vehicles.

I have finished meeting with all the staff individually to get to know them and what they do in the office. By and large I have found them to be dedicated, intelligent, committed and hard working. Most of them thought that we needed better organization, strong leadership from the assessor, goals and standards, equal treatment for all employees and a strong sense of teamwork.

In studying the various job descriptions and functions I found one position that I felt was not necessary at this time and I have eliminated that position. It had to do with mapping and GIS and, although that job may be needed at a later date, it was not contributing to solving our immediate problems.

I will take the funding for that position and by adding some unused budget authority to do it, I am able to hire another appraiser. That appraiser is needed for the reorganization of the appraisal areas of the county.

I have appointed Darlene Spade as my chief deputy. She is a long-term employee and is dedicated, organized and efficient. The chief deputy acts for and as the assessor in their absence. I have complete confidence in Darlene and was very pleased that she gladly accepted this responsibility.

I have chosen Jeri Peterson to be the new supervisor over all residential appraisers. She has an impressive resume, is experienced in fee appraising and was formerly with the Kootenai County Assessor's office before coming to the Bonner County Assessor's office in 2003.

Jeri has the right personality for this important position, the vision to make positive changes and a strong understanding of the need to work with taxpayers to arrive at the fairest possible assessments.

Our overriding goal this year is to focus on and produce fair, equitable, timely and defendable assessments of all properties. To do that we will work closely with the real estate professionals and fee appraisers to more closely define specific areas and sales data so that broad non-conforming areas are not used for comparables.

The State Tax Commission has promised their full support and cooperation to work assessments more accurate and fair. We will work closely and in full cooperation with the commissioners and other county officers to the benefit of all taxpayers.

Another top priority will be to develop methods to identify new construction and place all properties on the tax rolls. It is unbelievable that some of us pay our taxes and others have not been put on the rolls. If I find that we cannot catch up in this area because of a serious backlog I will ask the commissioners to fund contracts from fee appraisers to get us current.

There is a lot more to share with you but space dictates that I stop for now. We intend to make this Assessor's Corner a frequent article and thank the newspaper for its cooperation in this endeavor.

I also want you to know that if you are a part of a club or organization that would like to hear more from our office that we would be honored to speak at any meeting and answer questions.

Until later, thank you again for giving me the opportunity to serve as your assessor.