Credit has been given to those trying to provide research for the senior tax freeze proposal. And some have been seemingly passed over in the process.

Commissioner Anita Epperson, whose research may have hit the hinged nail on the head, had some of her research snubbed prior to the recent Commission vote against the proposal.

Epperson was asked by the Rules and Legislative Committee  to serve on a subcommittee to study the senior tax freeze and to return with a report at some point.
While her research was filed as a report, it was never openly considered at during recent County meetings. Finance Committee members, during the meeting when the fiscal note was attached, and Commissioners, all received copies of the report-one that was soon duped by many County officials as unsubstantial evidence, given some of the counties, by comparison, were “larger.”
Some advised the information was like comparing apples and oranges. But was it?
If the report had been absorbed perhaps with more in-depth, it could have been pretty persuasive for some.
Epperson went to the source, rather sources, being other county Property Assessors and Trustees. The counties she included in her report have recently approved the senior tax freeze or have had the program in place for several years.
And it seems in this report, size doesn’t really matter, when it comes to operating a senior property tax freeze program. It’s the will of the people and the faith the County places in the program.
Seems like this covered any margins of error.
Here’s an email Epperson received from Chris Mason, Roane County Trustee. Roane County is comparable in size to Bedford County, with a population of 56,000.
“I have been in the office for 8 years and the program was in place when I got here.
At that time, the office had 3 full time excluding the Trustee employees and 2 part time employees. Since then, I have reduced our staff to just 3 full-time employees, excluding me. For an "apples to apples" comparison we have around 56,000 residents and send out around 34,000 tax notices. I have 2 clerks that share the responsibility of Tax Freeze and Tax Relief, so it doesn't take up too much time.
Just a note, we are also implementing a new program that will match the Tax Relief program, and I do not anticipate having to add any staff for that program.
I am not sure what the cost to implement the program was, as far as tax burden the difference is of course picked up by the whole county.
See the June 25 edition of the T-G for more of this story.