Cox Announces House Bid

Sumner County School Board Chair Beth Cox announced yesterday she will challenge 45th district state Representative Courtney Rogers.

The Hendersonville Star News reported:

She will campaign on three major issues: education; business and the economy; and life and marriage issues, she said.
“I think you’ve all seen from my eight years on the school board that I am someone who takes my passion and puts it to action,” she said.

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Five Consecutive Years of Delayed Billing

Unfortunately, it's what Sumner County residents have come to expect from Tax Assessor John Isbell.  Delays in tax bills, tax bills sent and then re-sent due to errors. Fees and interest paid by local governments due to late preparation of tax bills.

Tennessee's Office of the Comptroller of the Treasury weighed-in recently and noted:


“We know of no other counties that have had this magnitude of a problem as it relates to the tax freeze and tax billing,” Mumpower (of the Comproller's Office) said. “And certainly not a reoccurring problem as you have seen here, which have included five consecutive years of delayed tax billing.”

Inaccuracies Delay Billing:

“The assessor’s tax roll was not prepared accurately because it did not include the accurate amounts to be paid by those residents who qualified for the Property Tax Freeze program,” Comptroller’s Spokesman John Dunn said.

Enacted in 2007, the tax freeze allows counties to give qualifying senior citizens tax incentives. Sumner seniors age 65 or older with an income of $36,220 or less in 2015 will pay the tax rate from their qualifying year  for their primary residence, Dunn said.

Five years of delayed bills. Errors in tax freeze calculation. A 2014 assessment that was done twice due to the number of errors.

That's John Isbell's record.

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Strong Schools to Host Education Forum

Grassroots advocacy group Strong Schools will host a forum on Thursday, January 7th from 6PM to 8PM at the Hendersonville Public Library with State Senator Ferrell Haile and State Representative William Lamberth. Both represent Hendersonville in the Tennessee General Assembly.

The forum will focus on key education issues coming up in this year's legislative session. Those issues include vouchers, school funding, testing, and teacher evaluation.

The event is billed as a roundtable with time for public input and direct questions to the legislators.

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