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Dear Editor:
This letter was originally sent on April 8 to the Indy Star, in response to their April 4 article about the lawsuit against the Hamilton County Treasurer. The Star never printed my response. Prompted by the Hamilton County Reporter’s June 27 article, I submit my original response to The Reporter with an additional postscript.
Fellow taxpayers, you and I have reasonable expectations of accuracy and accountability that some current and former employees of the Hamilton County Treasurer’s Office find offensive. Recently, a fired former employee publicly expressed that mistakes, like misapplying your tax payments, are no big deal.
I couldn’t disagree more.
When mistakes lead to a taxpayer’s property being wrongfully sold in a tax sale, I find that a big deal and the former employee’s comment reprehensible. Some current employees complained in the paper about “unreasonable demands for promptness and accuracy.” Apparently, showing up to work on time and accurate tracking of your tax payments is just too demanding on them.
While I am not a defendant in the legal action taken against Hamilton County, you may have noticed that I am the target of spurious allegations. I will not succumb to bullying tactics and sacrifice your performance expectations for the convenience of a few.
Never in my 30 years of employment with the Treasurer’s Office, including two terms as Treasurer, have I found such disregard for integrity and such a callous attitude toward your property as was displayed by former and current employees in the public comments they made in the newspapers.
In conclusion, fellow taxpayers, I pledge to do whatever I can in my capacity as chief deputy to continue enforcement of the state mandated internal controls of our office. Whatever resistance I face, it will not deter me from insisting on the highest quality of customer service that you’ve come to expect. Whatever personal attacks I am besieged with, I will handle behind the scenes. As far as public assaults on your rights as taxpayers, I will not let them go unchecked.
P.S. It was Ms. Byer who accepted a late payment from a county employee and gave it to another employee to post as on time. She got caught and is apparently trying to deflect her actions onto her supervisors.
Kim Good
Kim Good is the former Treasurer and current Chief Deputy of the Hamilton County Treasurer’s office.