Larry Riley Argues for More Assessor Education Contrary to Senate Bill 12

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From the Muncie Star Press:
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A number of officeholders do need to successfully complete certain training once elected, typically at taxpayer expense, but not before winning office.

One lonely exception: a county assessor (or township assessor, of which we have none anymore in Delaware County).

An assessor has to be a certified Level III assessor-appraiser to even run for office. Certification comes from taking five specific classes approved by the International Association of Assessing Officers and pass tests for each.

Now, a bill filed in the current General Assembly would remove this requirement and allow assessors to be unqualified themselves, but if so, they need to employ a Level III person or have one as an independent contractor with the assessor’s office.

Isn’t this going in the wrong direction?
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Within the last decade, the state decided that assessing property is so complex — who would disagree? — that elected assessors needed to be qualified. Assessment is the first step in the property tax process.
So 10 years ago, a state assessment training fund was established, drawing all its funds from real estate sales disclosure filing fees, to pay for training assessors.

In the last state fiscal year, the fund’s revenues brought in $632,000 and the fund spent $418,000 to train officials.

Despite years of knowing what was coming down the pike, 56 of Indiana’s 92 counties as of last August still had elected assessors without Level III assessor-appraiser certification.

Delaware County’s Assessor James Carmichael is one of 36 county assessors in the state with the certification.

(Let me address what you might be thinking: this doesn’t mean assessment is perfect, or perfectly accurate, in Delaware County by any means: the process remains extraordinarily complicated and uniformity in assessment remains elusive.)

Only 13 townships in Indiana still have township assessors (that office was the only local layer of government legislators agreed to eliminate a few years ago, and mostly due to officeholder incompetence at assessment), only seven have the Level III designation.

So perhaps some legislators worry that no one will serve. Still, if unqualified assessors have to hire out, or contract out, the certified position, couldn’t those certified people have run unopposed to be assessor?
And why pay an unqualified assessor if he or she has to hire or contract with a Level III person anyway, thereby raising the overall costs?
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I hope Senate Bill 12 dies and legislators refocus their thinking on how we can come up with more educated public officials, not less qualified ones.

See the full article here:

http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013302030021