Is Harrison County supervisor beating ‘dead horse’ over election loss to tax collector?
Veteran Harrison County Supervisor Connie Rockco, who lost the county tax collector’s race by a whopping margin to Sharon Nash Barnett, has publicly criticized her opponent, accusing her of campaigning instead of working.
The Board of Supervisors controls department budgets, including Barnett’s. Rockco refused at a meeting earlier this week to support a measure that would have transferred $29,423 to Barnett’s budget to cover printing and postage so Barnett can send out property-tax notices to county residents, including those inside cities.
The measure passed because the four other supervisors supported it. But Rockco’s vote was a resounding “no.”
Barnett will need to return to the board on Monday because her budget was cut before the election and she told the Sun Herald that she is short of personnel in the main tax collector’s office at the Gulfport courthouse. The office is the busiest in the county because people pay their real estate and personal property taxes and buy car tags there.
Barnett said that she will be asking for $313,000, mainly to cover salaries, postage and rent on the Orange Grove community location, which had been closed during part of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said her original budget request was for around $2 million, the amount supervisors funded for the previous two or three years.
“We’re all a team to take care of the taxpayers,” Barnett told the Sun Herald on Wednesday. “That’s what we do. I think we should all be doing that as a team, not trying to hurt one another. I’m not mad at anybody. I have no hard feelings.”
More on supervisor election victory
Rockco questioned Barnett at the beginning of Monday’s board meeting about why the property-tax notices did not go out on time, reaching taxpayers in early December.
Barnett, who has worked in the office for about 18 years, said only one employee had previously handled the notices, the deputy tax collector who is no longer there. Barnett said she was new to the process and explained delays caused by waiting for various approvals.
All board members agreed to amend the agenda so that Barnett’s request for funding postage and printing of the notices could be considered. Supervisor Marlin Ladner asked that the item be added late to the agenda because it was time-sensitive.
As Barnett left the room, Rockco, who is president of the board and presided over the meeting, congratulated her opponent on winning the election.
When Barnett’s funding request came up near the end of the meeting, Supervisor Beverly Martin had a question about the tax collectors budget and asked, “Is she coming back, that lady that wanted the budget amendment?”
When Barnett failed to appear (someone said she had left for lunch), Martin said she could ask her question later. Martin wanted to know how many tax notices were being mailed out.
Rockco said: “My question is, you have months to do it beforehand. Why did she wait until today, until the last minute.”
“ . . . She and her crew, I guess, was campaigning when they should have been doing their work.” And then she laughed.
Rockco was referring to the nonpartisan general election campaign Nov. 3, followed by a Nov. 24 runoff between her and Barnett that saw Barnett capture almost 85% of the vote.
Ladner said that Barnett had already explained earlier in the meeting why the tax notices were late going out.
“You asked her and she told you,” Ladner said.
Rockco said, “Well, she needs to tell me again.”
“How many times do you need to be told?” Ladner asked.
“Three or four.” Rockco said. “Two or three. Three or four, maybe.”
Rockco: Tax collector ‘dishonored’ the board
Then came Rockco’s ‘no’ vote. After the amendment passed, Rockco took a sip from her insulated drink tumbler, then posed a question to board attorney Tim Holleman.
“And I’d like to know, Tim, when you do an order and it’s ignored, do you just don’t do anything about it? I mean, what does an order mean if it’s ignored, what does it mean? Why should we even do it?”
She was referring to Barnett’s pledge, when supervisors appointed her interim tax collector in April, not to run for the position. Her agreement not to run was included in a board order. Rockco said that Barnett had “dishonored this board for not keeping that commitment.”
Both Rockco and Barnett qualified to run for the office after Barnett’s appointment. Barnett has said that her customers talked her into running. She is not the first person appointed to a political position who agreed not to run and did so anyway.
Holleman said the order was not binding and not enforceable.
Rockco suggested that, in the future, supervisors should sign a contract with someone to perform the duties of the office rather than appointing them to the office, to which Holleman responded that the board is required to fill vacancies in county elected offices.
“What complicates it, Connie, is that you ran and you were sitting on the board to get that commitment,” Ladner said.
“But I wasn’t running at the time,” Rockco said. “I wasn’t planning on it.” Rockco noted that Ladner was the supervisor who asked Barnett to pledge not to run for the office.
“Yeh, but you did (run for the office),” Ladner said. “And she wasn’t planning on it either at the time, apparently, when she made that commitment.”
“I didn’t make you a commitment,” Rockco said. “The difference is, I didn’t make a commitment not to.”
“I don’t want to get into it,” Ladner said. “That’s (beating) a dead horse anyway. Why would I want to try to get a dead horse up?”
Rockco said in an interview Thursday morning that she was ‘not beating a dead horse’ but trying to determine how the board should fill vacant elected positions in the future and whether they should ask interim officeholders not to run at election time.
Rockco said she heard from Barnett on Wednesday about adding her next budget request to the board’s agenda for Monday.
“I said, ‘Look, Sharon, you may not like me and I may not like you, but we have to take care of the taxpayers,’ ” Rockco told the Sun Herald. “I said, ‘I hope we are going to work together for the betterment of the taxpayers.’ She said, ‘Yes ma’am.’ “
Rockco said that she once again congratulated Barnett on her election victory.
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 9:23 AM.
