Cooney’s Actions Rate Low Appraisal

Spokane County Assessor Charlene Cooney was right about one thing. Fighting successfully to exempt her staff from budget cuts, she pointed out the importance of her office to the fiscal underpinnings of local government.

But an ample staff isn’t enough. It has to have a competent manager.

Cooney’s isn’t.

The only question that remains is how much more damage her ineptitude will do - to government services in the county, to her reputation and to the credibility of the local Democratic Party in which her family once wielded power.

Cooney means well - in a scattered, grandmotherly sort of way that makes it distasteful to criticize her. But good intentions are not a substitute for technical competence, nor is niceness a substitute for managerial skill.

Cooney’s first major error was to let reappraisal of commercial real estate slide and to reappraise only residential property instead. That decision caused a staggering, painful shift in the local property tax burden from commercial to residential properties. Cooney claimed commercial values had been flat. Now we are learning how wrong she was.

When Cooney finally did get around to commercial reappraisals, she bungled that job. She allowed her staff to drag its feet, ignoring work-completion deadlines. She rebuffed warnings that appraisers had set wildly inaccurate, unfounded property values. Today, property appraisals still are in flux, and lately, they’ve been changed in panicky circumstances that raise more questions about fairness and accuracy.

Meanwhile, local agencies face funding and service cuts caused not by a rational budgeting process but by Cooney’s incompetence. Taxpayers and fellow officials have lost faith in the assessor’s appraisals and levy rates.

It is a travesty that the state and county now must spend money on management aides for Cooney, hoping she’ll heed them, as she should. Meanwhile, agencies Cooney has injured must cut their staffs.

Only when Cooney has left office - by resignation, recall or election - will the problem be addressed. Even then, candidates stronger than those in the election Cooney won will have to come forward to replace her.

Last fall, we endorsed Cooney’s candidacy, regretting a lack of credible opposition. Her emerging screw-ups remind us all that partisan elections are a chancy way to fill technical, managerial government jobs. If qualified people don’t step forward, democracy founders.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board