By Susan Redden

sredden@joplinglobe.com

CARTHAGE, Mo. — Six Jasper County residents are seeking an office where property owners directed at least 4,061 protests a year ago.

That’s the number of informal appeals that were lodged with the county assessor’s office in the wake of the 2007 property reassessment. About 800 property owners took their disagreements on to a county appeals board, and some of those pressed additional appeals with the state, or in court.

Yet a half-dozen candidates are running for the office of county assessor on the Republican primary ballot in August.

There are no candidates running on other county ballots, so the winner will replace Don Davis, also a Republican, who was elected eight years ago and decided not to seek another term.

Davis took office in the midst of the county’s first full-scale reassessment in four years, after the process was delayed while the office was installing a new computerized mass appraisal system. Appraised values of real estate in the county jumped more than 40 percent and the assessor’s office was flooded with protests, including many filed with county and state appellate boards by property owners worried about how those higher property values would translate to higher property taxes.

Davis attributed some of the problems to the new appraisal system, and replaced it 2005. But because of delays in installing that new system, the office did only a limited reappraisal that year and the office was swamped again with protests after the 2007 reassessment. The rate of increase in residential property values was less than earlier — averaging 11 percent — which also prompted some questions from school districts counting on more revenue from property taxes.

The office also is one that depends on state revenues for most of its financing and has oversight from the Missouri State Tax Commission, which oversees laws concerning property tax.

The race involves four candidates with experience in the assessor’s office and real estate, including one current worker who sought the post eight years ago. The successful candidate, though essentially “elected” in August, won’t take office until the following September, after the 2009 reassessment.

Like most other elected officials in the county, annual pay for the post is $59,000.

Larry Carsten is a deputy assessor who has worked in the office since 1985. Other former office workers seeking the post are Danny Drake and Connie Alumbaugh-Hoover. Jeff Hammons owns an insurance firm, but cites experience as a real-estate developer. Also seeking the post are Gary Allison and Brent Hensley, who both cite backgrounds and education in business and management.

Drake works as a certified real-estate appraiser and previously was employed by the assessor’s office. He said he has 12 years of property-valuation experience and management skills, through ownership of a business.

He said he wants to provide residents with “an experienced assessor that is both fair and accurate.” If elected, he said he would provide fairness and keep property information updated with technology that can allow residents convenient access to valuation information.

Alumbaugh-Hoover worked in the assessor’s office from January 2002 through October 2005 in market study, field review and data entry. She also attended the 2005 national convention of the firm that produces the software now used to assess property in Jasper County.