In an effort to save some money, the Pulaski County Commissioners this week approved a motion allowing County Assessor Holly VanDerAa to hire a company to prepare the county’s Form 11s. Form 11s were previously sent to Pulaski County taxpayers whenever the assessed value of their property went up, but VanDerAa says new guidelines from the state require her office to send the forms whenever any change to the assessed value occurs.
VanDerAa says one company offered to prepare and mail the forms to county taxpayers at a cost of $11,486.69 – a steep figure, but when you factor in the cost of postage alone at $8100 and the costs of paper, ink, and the expense to pay employees to stuff and mail the envelopes, she says it’s worth it to have the company do it instead, and Commissioner Ken Boswell agreed.
“We’re limited on our staff, we’re a small county, we can only have so many people on staff. There’s things that we can farm out to another company that can do the work, and especially when it’s going to be even less than our postage would be, then that seems like money well spent,” said Boswell.
VanDerAa also requested the commissioners approve a $1400 expense for a new office computer, because she says the current computer has been having slowness issues and needs replaced. The commissioners approved her request to be taken out of the Reassessment Fund.
The commissioners also gave VanDerAa approval to attend the AIC Conference from Sept. 23 to 26 in Indianapolis. She says the conference includes a joint session for auditors and assessors, and described the conference as a great time for networking.
