LETTER: Madison County missed out on a qualified chief appraiser

Dear Editor:

Last week I attended the special meeting of the Madison County Board of Commissioners, called to consider the hiring of a new chief appraiser in the tax assessors’ office.


I came home much disappointed but not really surprised.

We currently have a four-member board of assessors, and by a 3-1 vote we recommended a current employee in the appraisers’ office, Stacey Rubio, to be promoted from interim chief appraiser to chief appraiser.

The commissioners turned us down by a 4-1 vote because they said that our recommendation had to be unanimous.

Ms. Rubio is a college graduate who had a 3.5–4.0 grade average almost every semester. She is a Grade III appraiser, which fulfills the legal requirements for the position of chief appraiser, and she is on track for getting her Grade IV certification.

She has the advantage of being familiar with the Madison County tax office and hers would be a smooth transition, whereas there would be a certain learning period for someone coming in from the outside.

I have been told that some have said there would never be another female chief appraiser in the county. For the sake of all qualified women who are an important part of our county’s work force, I hope that surely we have moved beyond gender bias in our workplace. Having said that, it would not surprise me that people make with a political agenda against her would not miss an opportunity to try to make her look bad, as the interim chief, or if she were appointed chief appraiser.

People of Madison County, those of us who recommended Ms. Rubio felt that we had a good plan. We have a certified person, already in place, already working on this year’s digest and making progress on it, and we could save enough money on this hire that we could add a much-needed clerk in the office without increasing our budget. Sounds like a win-win situation, doesn’t it?

What is it going to take to get people to set aside politics and put consideration of the Madison County taxpayers’ needs first?

Is that too much to ask?

Sincerely,

Jim R. Escoe Sr.

Member, Board of Tax Assessors