Doesn having multiple elected assessors promote accountability?
No, it diminishes it. The personal relationship touted by some of the assessors introduce extraneous considerations into the assessment process. Having multiple assessors works against accountability in other ways. For example, the seven assessors have different fiscal years. This makes it impossible to figure out revenues and expenditures for a given year. Would eliminating seven assessors save the city money? Consolidating the seven assessors could produce savings for the City by freeing up office space that the city is required to provide the seven assessors. More importantly, would allow for an immediate redeployment of resources to create a more efficient and properly staffed assessment organization. The resources used for the seven CEOs could be used to hire appraisers and data processors instead. What resources could be redeployed? From an administrative standpoint, the seven-assessor system is ridiculously top-heavy. Basically, New Orleanians are paying for seven CEOs when one
