More Help Advised For Assessor Consultant Recommends County Office Add Nine More Workers, Additional Computers

With four workers fresh on the payroll, the Spokane County assessor needs nine more to catch up on work, a state consultant said Thursday.

County Commissioner John Roskelley estimated the nine employees, plus new computers and other improvements included in consultant Rich Baird’s recommendation, would cost taxpayers $600,000.

One of the new employees would be a deputy assessor, “crucial to knitting the office together in terms of planning and management,” Baird said.

Five workers would be appraisers hired for two years to help the county catch up on property appraisals. The remaining three would be support staff.

Roskelley said the county should spend the money, although it can’t this year.

“What he’s talking about is correcting some pretty serious problems,” most of which started long before Assessor Charlene Cooney took office in 1992, Roskelley said.

“If we don’t follow these recommendations then we should never have had (Baird) come in here,” said Commissioner Phil Harris.

Inaccurate appraisals last year forced Cooney’s office to slash assessed values by more than $200 million, costing taxing districts hundreds of thousands of dollars in expected revenue. This year, tax bills were mailed late.

Baird’s recommendation comes just a month after commissioners agreed to hire four workers so Cooney can eliminate a backlog of 3,000 “segregations,” as subdivisions and other land divisions are called. Those positions will cost taxpayers $50,600 this year and $100,000 a year in 1997 and 1998.

The earlier decision also was based on a recommendation from Baird, who in the last year has made 30 trips to Spokane from his state Department of Revenue office in Olympia to study the assessor’s office and make recommendations. Thursday’s trip was his last.

With 52 workers, Spokane County’s assessor office ranked 36th among the 39 counties for staff-to-parcel ratio, Baird said. It has the fewest computers per staff member among the state’s largest counties.

Six new computers, along with new printers, would help the staff work more efficiently, said Baird. Appraisers sometimes line up to use existing computers.

Baird recommended another two computers - including one placed at the downtown library - so real estate agents, title companies and others can look up information about parcels themselves.

That, he said, would free up staff time now spent answering questions. And, it would mean fewer busy signals when county residents call the assessor’s office.

, DataTimes