The Mathews Board of Supervisors agreed on Tuesday night to give Commissioner of the Revenue Les Hall a $3,500 supplement so he can hire outside help to bring him up to speed on making assessments and entering the results into the computer system.

Hall explained to the board that since taking office he has been busy working on personal property taxes and business licenses, training for DMV tasks, and making sure his employees are cross trained on all functions. He has a backlog of 84 assessments from this year that still need to be completed, he said, but the most overwhelming task confronting him is taking care of the 254 assessments from last year that were never completed.

Although he’s had two days of training on assessments, Hall said that’s not enough and he needs help catching up. The $3,500 will allow him to hire someone from an outside firm to come in and complete up to 120 assessments with him and show him how to enter the data into the computer.

Supervisors chair Janine Burns told Hall she was confused about why he was just getting core training after six months on the job, but Hall explained that he was left with no infrastructure in his office and had one employee resign, so he’s been behind from the beginning. Another commissioner of the revenue showed him the basics of assessments, he said, but didn’t have time to help with the data entry part of the job.

"I don’t want to spend all my time in court defending my assessments," he said.

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