At the Carmi Township meeting Tuesday night, things got a little heated.
The Supervisor of Assessments, Gary Baxley, was not in attendance. Still, he did leave a copy of paperwork showing 11 business property additions that still need to be assessed, along with a list of 35 personal properties that are, in some cases, severely under-assessed.
County Assessor Amy Edwards explained more about the concern: “This is a personal attack. I’ve never worked like this out of this office before, and I’ve been the Assessor since 2010, so I’ve always been able to work out of the office. Terri Abell put parcel reports with work she wanted done in my file every week. That’s the way I’ve always done my job. If these things need to be added, I don’t know why he didn’t put them in my file.”
Township member and White County Treasurer Mike Baxley added to the conversation to try and help alleviate the situation with Edwards, “Is that his job?” “No, it’s not Mike, but that’s how I’ve done my job for all these years.” “It’s not his job.” “Can I talk? So when he first took over as Supervisor, he was putting things in my file. He and I seem to be working OK together. No, it is not his job. I guess you’re talking about the statutes. Is that what you’re talking about? It says that I’m supposed to come out driving around looking for stuff. I am the only Assessor in this whole county. I’m not a hard person to get along with Mike, and I went in and had a meeting with him today. I had driven around like he asked me to do. Have you ever driven around trying to figure out if something’s been added on the tax roll or not? It’s really hard.”
Township President Pam Deig commented, “So I have a question, someone comes into the Assessor’s Office and asks for something to be reassessed. Who does that, you or Gary? Pete Fulkerson had brought something into the Assessor’s Office and asked for it to be reassessed, and it was never given to Amy; Gary assessed it. So how does that work whenever she’s not getting the work?”
The Township offered her an office so she could assess only residential and business property in the Carmi Township area.
The board concluded by approving new bid specifications for a new backhoe and adopting the annual meeting agenda for April 9th at 6:00 pm.
