Washita County Assessor Rusty Bookout has hired an attorney after alleging that budget cuts have left his office without enough money to operate. Oklahoma City law firm Fellers Snider sent a certified letter, dated August 25th, to the Washita County Commissioners and the Washita County Excise Board, which read, in part, “This correspondence is submitted as a formal demand that the County allocate sufficient funds to the Assessor’s Office to enable it to lawfully discharge its statutory duties.”
A special meeting of the Commissioners and Excise Board was held on September 3rd to discuss the situation and decide on a course of action. Ultimately, there was a unanimous vote in favor of hiring legal counsel to defend against the allegations outlined in the letter.
During the meeting, each County Commissioner spoke directly to Assessor Bookout to express their disappointment in his decision to take legal action against the county. District 3 Commissioner Greg Chandler began by saying, “Nobody here is against you, Rusty. We have tried every way to work with you on your budget.” That statement was met by angry rebuttal from Bookout, with Chandler reminding him of a discussion they had about changes that were to be made to the budget request by Bookout, which were allegedly never submitted.
District 2 Commissioner David Gray addressed the salary allocations in Bookout’s budget request, noting that while every department head would like to see raises for their employees, the Assessor’s office employees are already earning more per hour than the county’s road workers, and that salary raises were not feasible this year in the Assessor’s department budget.
County Clerk Kristen Dowell reported that there were no excess funds to draw from, and in fact, the Washita County Jail is seriously underfunded and will rely on jail fees to meet payroll. Costs for the county’s attorney will have to come out of employee longevity funds or possibly county workers’ safety incentives.
In a follow-up meeting on September 8th, a proposal for legal services from Coffee Lawson Fields, PLLC, with a rate of $350 per hour plus $100 per hour for paralegal services was presented and approved by the County Commissioners.
Assessor Bookout declined an interview with the Beacon upon advice from his lawyer.