The Carbon County Commissioners met for their April 3 meeting to tackle a multitude of topics. Toward the end of the agenda, one such topic was the consideration and possible appointment to the Multi County Appraisal Trust (MCAT) Board.
Commission Chair Larry Jensen explained that currently, Assessor Gillan Bishop is on the board and was appointed a couple of years ago. There has been some concerns there and it was brought forward onto the agenda for the commissioners to consider replacing Assessor Bishop as a board member.
They welcomed Bishop to the podium to briefly speak, and he began by stating that he was a bit in the blind in this regard and did not know who had reached out or what the specific concerns were. He explained what the MCAT board is and said that the committee right now is mainly working to develop a piece of software with the goal having all of the county on said software.
Bishop said he has sat on the committee and executive board for the last three years. In response to the concerns, he reached out and talked to the committee and the trustee informed Bishop that one of the commissioners had asked if the meetings had been disrupted by Bishop. In response, Bishop stated that he is professional and represents Carbon County in a way that he believes any citizen would be proud of.
Bishop came prepared with a letter from another committee member, who said that he has been a good asset to the board. From there, Bishop said that historically, the assessor is chosen to represent the county on this board and he believes that he can say he represented the county and has been a worthwhile member of the board.
Following his statement, Commissioner Jensen stated that this has been a concern for some time. With the problems the county is aware of in trying to ensure that values of the properties in the county are assessed accurately and fairly across the county, the commissioners were reluctant to trust anything at this time.
Commissioner Hopes said that he called Assessor Bishop earlier and discussed numbers, in which he still disagrees with Bishop’s statements. He said there are tools to be used by assessors to help improve the value of the work they are doing and the report coming out very soon will highlight problems viewed in Utah with values that are not fair and equitable, but all over the place.
Commissioner Hopes also stated that MCAT was created to assist counties and to create a statewide system so that when the State Tax Commission came to each of the counties, they could look at the data and it would be the same comparably across the state.
Commissioner Tony Martines wished to make it clear that, while assessors do often sit on the board, it does not only consist of them. From there, the commissioners approved the appointment of Barry Horsley to the board to replace Bishop.