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Washington County
Posted: Jun 03, 2026 10:26 AMUpdated: Jun 03, 2026 10:34 AM
Chris Standridge for Washington Co. Assesor
Tom Davis
Chris Standridge is running for the Washington County Assessor's Office and he's running on the platform of localizing some of the functions of the office that has been contracted out over the years.
Standridge was in the Assessor's Office for 13 years. He said, "I was fortunate enough to work for, I feel one of the best Assessors Washington County's ever seen, Todd Mathis." He added, "Todd was there for 28 years, ran unopposed. He was a very fair, easy to talk to, easy to deal with for the taxpayers, for his staff as well."
Standridge was the software contact point for the CAMA system at the Assesor's Office, which is our Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal -- the backbone of the Assessor's Office. According to Standridge, "Probably eight or nine years ago, the appraisals were, began to be outsourced. They went to a company out of Arkansas. They did not know, our neighborhoods, our builders. You need to be familiar with those to know what's desirable in a location, what's close to a school, what builder built this neighborhood, developed it."
Standridge said, "I don't feel that an out-of-state or even an out-of-town, out-of-county company can properly do that without knowing the area. So there's 245,000 to $248,000 allotted for the visual inspection cycle every year. That counts for personnel, for equipment, vehicles, things like that. And that funds the majority of the appraisal process. But then there's an additional 125, I believe this year they said up to 128,000 could be outsourced. That's two jobs at 62,5 or 64,000 dollars per year. Why not create two positions for field appraisers locally?"
Standridge wants to have appraisers that are local, that are taxpayers in the community, so when they make their money, they're not going and spending it in Washington County. I want to bring use two appraisers and one head appraiser.
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