A heated dispute within the halls of Yavapai County government has come to a close for now. Recently, the board of supervisors there voted to return more than half a dozen employees to the office of the assessor.
That’s after the attorney general found they had usurped the assessor’s authority.
Yavapai County Assessor Pam Pearsall called the move to reassign much of her staff, including those responsible for mapping and titles, "retribution." Years ago, Pearsall bumped up the valuations for agricultural property because much of it hadn’t been assessed for decades. That angered some, she said.
Then, earlier this year, the board took away ten people on her staff. After months of conflict and eventually an opinion from the attorney general, the supervisors reversed their decision.
“I’m hoping that now we will just move on and understand I have a constitutional job. I will do it. They have a job. They can do it. But what they cannot do is push me or force me to do something that’s illegal. I’m not going to do it,” Pearsall said.
Eventually the county wouldn’t have been able to collect some taxes without her certification, she said.
Such a legal conflict is a first for Arizona. The Department of Revenue had no comment.
Yavapai Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Smith said they were just trying to make the office more efficient. But they reversed course to avoid wasting any more money on the dispute.
“I personally believe the law does give the supervisors the right to pull these entities and manage the counties as it sees fit," Smith said. "But I do not find it reasonable to be fighting a legal battle to the tune of a million dollars. “
Smith rejected Pearsall’s claim that this was punishment for how she valued grazing land.
