Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The Quay County assessor and his Republican challenger propose high-technology ideas to improve that office.
The current Democratic officeholder, Dana Leonard, 54, will face off against former New Mexico Public Regulation Commission member Jefferson Byrd, 53, a rancher and windmiller, in the Nov. 5 election. Early voting began in the county on Tuesday.
The county assessor is responsible for valuing all property for taxing authorities, including municipalities, school districts and conservancy districts. The office also prepares tax schedules and tax rolls to submit to the county treasurer for billing and collection.
The county commission in March 2023 appointed Leonard as assessor after previous officeholder Janie Hoffman resigned because she and her husband were buying a title company in Tucumcari.
Leonard was the county’s geographic information system mapper at the time of his appointment and has retained that position.
Byrd was among five who applied for the assessor post last year.
During the Republican primary election in June, Byrd defeated chief deputy assessor James Kleinsasser for their party’s nomination for county assessor.
Byrd served one term on the PRC in its 2nd District from 2019 to 2023.
Byrd also made two unsuccessful runs for U.S. representative against Democrat Ben Ray Lujan, now a U.S. senator, and for state Commissioner of Public Lands.
The Quay County Sun interviewed Leonard and Byrd by phone last week about their candidacies. Their answers are verbatim, but slightly edited for clarity.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish if you’re elected?
Byrd: “My goal is to move this office into a more automated verification. A lot of the counties have transferred to using drones to find new construction, new assets on properties across the county. Counties like Lea County do it weekly to see what’s going on and to make sure people are properly permitted and assessed. We’re not that big of a county, but we need to be doing it maybe once a year, every six months, something like that. I know there’s buildings being built all across the county in more rural areas that aren’t on the tax rolls. We need to be properly assessing and taxing that and making sure everybody is actually paying their fair share.”
Leonard: “I have several goals. The first would be I would like to continue modernizing the office. For example, we’re in the process of migrating all of the county’s parcel data online, and I would like to complete that project.
He added he wants to update “the processes and procedures. We’re all working together to migrate everything to the computer, and that’s been a challenging, challenging process.”
Q: Why should people vote for you?
Byrd: “I bring in a new set of experience. This county office has been trained up from the previous (people), and the history goes back many decades. They know what they do and they do it well, but they’ve not had an outside set of eyes come in and say, ‘Hey, look, these are other options, other opportunities that can make our jobs easier, make this office more efficient and bring it into a new style of doing the assessor’s job.’”
Leonard: “I believe I am the most qualified. The county has invested a lot of time and money in my training. I’ve taken over 26 classes equaling over 100 hours. As of last week, I’m a state-certified assessor.
“My opponent has no experience in (being an assessor), would obviously have to repeat that education. The other thing I would like to mention is I have an incredible staff. Two of the three people in my office are actually nationally certified assessors.”
Q: What do you think makes a good assessor?
Byrd: “Someone who supports the staff. When I went to the PRC, I’d never worked there before, but the staff quickly began to really appreciate my leadership style. I supported them, I knew they were experts at what they did, and I worked on making sure that their job was made easier by whatever means was possible. So one is just being open to supporting the staff and making sure their jobs are as easy and they don’t have to worry about making the boss happy, but doing their job correctly. I think that’s very important.”
Leonard: “Someone who appreciates that the office is limited in functionality. We only assess the value of your land and the improvements on it. Our goal is to maintain a comprehensive inventory of the taxable property in the county. Because the more value that is included in the tax rolls, the lower the taxes are for everyone. If we all pay our fair share, we all pay less.”