Documents detail concerns with former tax assessor

FLORENCE — Florence County documents show there were numerous financial, legal and other concerns with former Tax Assessor Leval Williams who said charges during his grievance hearing were based on “misinterpretations and lies.”

The documents, released to the Morning News under a Freedom of Information request, also provided details of his grievance process which has upheld Williams’ dismissal.

Williams, now running for county treasurer, was fired March 14 from the tax assessor’s post.

In an interview with the Morning News, Williams said he doesn’t think it was legal for the county to release documents related to his grievance because he views the grievance as ongoing.

Florence County Council has taken no action regarding Williams’ grievance. Council Chairman Rusty Smith said he could give no further comment because the matter is a personnel issue.

Jack Newsome has served as county tax assessor since Aug. 4. He said he previously served about 17 years as Darlington County’s assessor.

Among the issues named by county Finance Director Kevin Yokim were:

-- An independent internal audit in January revealed the assessor’s office made no deposit for six months. The department had $4,040 in checks, more than half of which were dated more than six months prior. A Jan. 14 deposit exceeded receipts records by more than $450.

-- The assessor’s office had no “justifiable legal basis” for maintaining a “hold-out” list, which delayed processing of tax notices and thereby allowed certain taxpayers to avoid nearly $76,400 in penalties on 4,310 notices for 1999 through 2006.

-- Williams failed to respond in a timely manner to taxpayer requests or complaints.

In one situation, a landowner protested the appraisal of 2004 and 2005 taxes on nearly 156 parcels because, the landowner’s attorney wrote, the assessor’s office was adding a fixed percentage to the land’s value rather than individually appraising the property.

The attorney said in the letter that five months had passed with no response to the written protests. He wrote the following month that Williams had “accosted” his client, threatened the landowner with perjury, and insisted that the man “personally sign the papers, objections and appeals previously filed on his behalf.”

A Sept. 6, 2005, a county memo also directed Williams to end an “inappropriate” relationship with a subordinate that placed the county at risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Yokim also wrote that property erroneously appeared in a delinquent tax sale ad because Williams failed to submit an add-and-abate form to the auditor’s office for processing.

Williams’ grievance documents also contain his response to the circumstances surrounding his firing.

Williams wrote a letter asking County Administrator Richard Starks to reconsider the termination because of what Williams called misinterpretations and misrepresentations of the facts by Yokim.

County records state that Williams was fired because he directed a county contractor to change the dates on 360 property tax notices, thereby removing late penalties.

The penalties, however, were added prematurely because of a coding error showing the payment as 30 days late, Florence County Auditor Wayne Joye said earlier this year.

State law requires payment of property taxes “before the sixteenth day of January or thirty days after the mailing of tax notices, whichever occurs later.”

The notices were prepared May 29, 2007, but are dated July 29, 2007 — nearly two weeks after the assessor’s office wrote a receipt for a check from the developer of the property in question.

Williams wrote that the treasurer’s office in July 2007 sent his office a check for the property tax notices to his office and asked for 360 individual bills before the payments could be processed.

Williams also wrote that Yokim’s statement about directing the contractor to alter the notices was a “misinterpretation or incorrect representation of the facts.” He said the assessor’s office told the county contractor before May 29, 2007, to process the notices, which would incur no penalties if paid by Jan. 16, 2009.

He also wrote that an investigation into the notices began because of an “auditor’s office complaint about not wanting to abate notices for prepayment and remove penalties.”

He added that he couldn’t have altered the notices, which were prepaid for 2008, because “it is impossible to alter tax records that have not yet opened.” He stated that the 2008 tax rolls would not officially open until this September.

Yokim responded that the fact that the developer was prepaying was irrelevant and that “the fact remains that you directed the contractor to change the dates ... ”

Yokim also wrote that Williams prepared abate-and-add forms this February to remove the penalties added Jan. 16. Yokim said Williams should have taken that action in July 2007 to handle the situation.

State law allows for a committee of a county’s auditor, treasurer, and assessor to waive, dismiss or reduce property tax penalties levied in error.

In addition, a check for the developer’s prepaid taxes was one of those the assessor’s office held onto for six months before depositing Jan. 14, according to Yokim’s response.

In Williams’ personnel file, Yokim wrote that Williams should have been fired in 2001 because he had failed to obtain a real estate appraiser’s license within two years of his promotion.

Williams didn’t mail his application for his real estate appraiser’s license until May 22, 2006, after repeated e-mails, memos, letters of counseling and reprimand, and a one-week suspension, according to county documents.

In his most recent suspension, Williams was cited for failing to respond to voicemails and e-mails within 24 hours, not depositing receipts for more than six months, leaving vacant positions unoccupied, and failing to submit his department’s budget request by deadline for the second year in a row.