The city of Portsmouth, Virginia, almost solved a problem for Jones County in a Jan. 23 city council meeting.
After regular business was concluded, Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke made a motion to add a new item to the agenda, which passed by a vote of 4-3. The item was hiring Anthony George as its city assessor with a starting salary of $130,000, effective April 1.
The vote to actually hire George went along the same lines, 4-3.
The following Monday, Jan. 29, Portsmouth held a called city council meeting with only two agenda items. The first, “adoption of a motion to rescind the appointment of Anthony George as city assessor,” passed 7-0 according to minutes posted on the city’s website.
George remains Jones County’s chief appraiser at an annual salary of $101,233.60 and got the job despite more than a decade of conduct that led to multiple terminations and being a party to a federal discrimination lawsuit against Fulton County and a warning from staff members.
“When we heard he was going to be hired, we prepared a letter detailing Tony’s history in Fulton and [Washington] D.C. and presented it to our Board of Assessors,” said Bill Goodman, a Level II appraiser who acknowledged he might be fired for coming forward, as previously reported by The Jones County News.
“They called us in the back office and asked us who did we think we were for telling them how to run the office. Since then, we felt we’ve had no recourse.
We have to do what he tells us to do.”
Goodman made this statement in a work session in front of the Jones County Board of Commissioners last month. He believes some properties are too low, others too high, with a lack of uniformity.
“We need a thorough review of the digest,” he said. “We don’t do that because on our staff, the way it’s run, we’re treated with condescension, intimidation. Any suggestion we have, you never know when your head is going to be ripped off, even if you’re agreeing with him.”
Fulton County
George was hired as Fulton County’s assistant chief appraiser in 2006, and he was terminated in 2010 for involvement in lowering property values. According to an article in The Washington Post, appraisers who worked under George alleged in part “that they were pushed to lower property values without justification.”
Five former employees filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against the Fulton County Board of Assessors, office of the Tax Assessors and the Board of Commissioners.
In the preliminary statement, the suit says, “During the plaintiff’s employment, defendants engaged in a systematic and regular practice of harassment, interference and discrimination toward plaintiffs based on race, gender, disability, age, violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act, and interference, deprivation and conspiracy to interfere with plaintiffs’ civil rights. Furthermore, several of the plaintiffs were retaliated against by defendants for engaging in statutorily protected activity.”
The plaintiffs each filed charges with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concerning discrimination allegations and were granted a “right to sue” letter.
One plaintiff with a disability was forced to go to George’s office in September 2008 to “explain to him, in front of his assistant, the exact medical reason for the medical appointments, despite the fact that there was a human resources coordinator who handled such issues,” the lawsuit continues.
In October, the same plaintiff accused George of becoming “verbally abusive toward [her] during a departmental meeting with other employees. Plaintiff attempted to make suggestions during the meeting and was ignored or chastised.” After that meeting, George recommended Rossi be fired for insubordination.
The lawsuit, 50 pages in length of similar allegations, was dismissed Dec. 18, 2013, after a settlement conference to avoid trial. The details of the settlement are not public.
Two appraisers who were interviewed by The Post said, “They were uncomfortable with some of the lowered values that they were being asked to approve. [The appraisers] said they began writing ‘Per Tony George’ on changed assessments.”
Washington D.C.
Eight months later, according to the story in The Post, George was hired as Washington D.C.’s chief tax appraiser and became “once again embroiled in a controversy that involves reduced property values.”
In that controversy, George was accused of settling assessment disputes that “lowered the proposed taxable value of 500 commercial properties by $2.6 billion, leading to an estimated loss of $48 million in tax revenue.”
In a 2012 follow-up article, The Post reported that a 25-page audit report brought up concerns that managers in the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue had the ability to change property values without leaving a trace. While there was no wrongdoing alleged, the audit referred to the system as “significantly flawed.”
George resigned from his position in D.C. amid the controversy, including “misstating on his job application why he left a previous government job in Fulton County, Ga.,” according to The Post.
Overrides
Back in Jones County, during the work session when Goodman spoke to county commissioners, another appraiser, Kim Adams, also came forward. She has been with Jones County for 12 years.
“We haven’t kept up with uniformity to fairly assess people,” she said. “We use overrides inappropriately. We have over 35 percent overrides in one category. It’s supposed to be less than 5 percent.”
In response to an open records request by The Jones County News, George provided a report showing overrides for residential improvements at 838 out of 2,366, which comes to 35.42 percent. Compare that to land, which has 611 overrides out of 15,750 parcels for 3.88 percent.
A spreadsheet also obtained by open records request details the 2,533 overrides. Of those, 255 (10.1 percent) include the reason “299C.” Georgia code 48-5-299(c) states, among other things, that values decided by an appeal decision or agreement cannot be increased by the board of assessors during the next two years.
Another 50 properties (1.2 percent) list “BOE decision” as the reason. The remaining 2,227 properties (88 percent) list no reason.
Commissioners – who do not have control of who the Board of Assessors hires or fires – have asked for an explanation of the overrides but have not gotten one.
‘Sick and embarrassed’
“Last year, we were told by the DOAA [Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts] some things we needed to do,” Reid told county commissioners. “We’re barely at half of what they told us.”
Reid said assessors should look at housing “equally and blindly,” not dependent upon sales.
“I’ll tell you right now,” she said, “it’s going to be low next year, too. The concerns haven’t seemed to be received well. As Bill said, there’s been a lot of intimidation, and we can’t speak freely.”
The assessor added that she’s been hurt, mentally and financially.
“More than what happens to me, it’s what happens to everyone in the county,” she said. “The only thing we could do is a full county revaluation by a third party to adjust grades for sales ratios for neighborhoods and not just choosing values.”
“It makes me sick and embarrassed,” Reid said. “I’m embarrassed by it.”
The county confirmed Goodman and Reid are still employed by the Tax Assessors office.
