Conference Board makes pitch to keep county assessor

Chickasaw County may lose its assessor, and county, city and school officials reacted by offering Ray Armel a raise, effectively immediately, in an effort to keep him.
Armel has received an offer from Fayette County to be its assessor, a role Armel took over when Chickasaw County Assessor Doug Welton retired.
And because assessors are extremely difficult to find, an emergency meeting of the Conference Board was called last week, and after several votes, the board agreed to bump Armel’s pay up from $74,500 a year to $78,500. A preceding motion to raise the assessor’s salary to the state average of $80,000 failed.
For more on this story see the November 19 Tribune.