Rainsville City Councilman Joey Graham is pushing to create a new position at City Hall. Tax Assessor.

The role of the Tax Assessor would be "to discover and list all taxable property within the jurisdiction of the city."

The description refers to the exact duties already being performed by the DeKalb County Revenue Commission. And with the DeKalb County Revenue Commission having the largest number of employees per capita in the state, relief of workload on the county can hardly be used as a reason. In fact, according to the Auburn Wage Study ( http://www.alalm.org/), this would be the only position of it's kind in the State of Alabama.

Graham says, "It's not creating a new position but redefining a current position. RDS ( http://www.revds.com/) currently handles our sales tax, however this would establish the proper procedures if Rainsville was to ever have to deal with an alcohol tax."

First, the current position mentioned is that of an Internal Revenue Officer, which Rainsville already has. Even with that position, revenue collection is contracted out to RDS at approximately $50k per year.

Second, there is no mention of an alcohol tax in the proposed ordinance. Moreover, even if a possible alcohol tax fell under 'special taxes', RDS would continue to collect the taxes for the City of Rainsville.

ORDINANCE:  City of Rainsville - Tax Assessor(3)_040714

The position in question could actually be absorbed and duties distributed to the staff at City Hall when the current Revenue Officer, Richard Gibson, retires. The workload averages approximately 10 hours per week.

Rainsville had a $95k budget deficit in 2012. According to the independent financial audit Rainsville recently received, Fiscal Year 2013 showed a budget surplus of $296k.

So, the question must be asked...why would a City Council Member that's part of an administration involved in such a fiscal turnaround want to create an appointed position that doesn't benefit the taxpayers of Rainsville?