Members of the Gilmer County Board of Tax Assessors discussed, and eventually tabled, a revised policy for vehicle use by staff members when meeting last Thursday.
Chief Appraiser Theresa Gooch said the vehicle item, which includes procedures for exclusive use of vehicles by office staff, was derived from policies and procedures in the Gilmer County Handbook. Exclusive use, in this case, means a take home vehicle, she noted.
Gooch said each of the office’s field appraisers currently has a Jeep assigned to them, and the appraisers are responsible for cleaning the vehicles, as well as reporting any damage or mechanical issues to their supervisor. The office has another Jeep included in its 2022 budget, she noted.
The policy additions are for if the board or chief appraiser ever does decide to assign take-home vehicles for employees, Gooch told board members Gary Engel, Bill Logan, John Williamson, Jerry Davis and Tom Porter.
Engel and Logan had questions, and suggested additions to the policy.
Engel said he believes a take-home vehicle should be assigned to another employee if somebody who has one goes on vacation or any kind of leave.
“The concern I have is the most efficient utilization of the assets that we have. I ran a transportation motor pool in the Army for 500 vehicles. I know a little bit about managing a vehicle pool. You’ve got to be pretty efficient when you use it,” he said.
Logan said he’s not against employees taking vehicles home, but not with the policy that was presented. It needs to be more restrictive, he noted.
“The first thing would be that nobody on a probationary period (for new employees) should be driving one home. It’s a privilege to drive one home, not a right. It’s a privilege that can be (revoked). There should be some restrictions and guidelines in there,” Logan said.
He suggested guidelines that cover checking to make sure the vehicles are being taken care of, that they aren’t to be taken out of the county and an employee must be a level 1,2,3 or 4 appraiser to drive a take-home vehicle.
The item was tabled so those additions could be made to the policy.
Board members did approve an addition to an office policy on acceptable use of Gilmer County mobile devices, which states that iPads used by assessors office staff can’t be turned off or put in airplane mode during work hours.
“If it’s turned off or placed on airplane mode, it can’t be located,” Gooch said.
In other news …
Board members approved adopting a 2022 NADA value schedule for manufactured homes. Gooch said, based on comparisons from 2021-2022, it looks like there is about a 12 percent increase in the overall value of real and prebill (mobile home) manufactured housing.
Board members approved sending public utility assessment notices using an equalization ratio of 40 percent. This means public utilities, including electricity, telephone and railroad companies, will be taxed at the full rate this year.