Callaway County Assessor Dan Roe said Monday he soon hopes his staff can be back up to the 10 employees it had when he took office.
Roe said one employee retired in July who had worked at the office for 15 years.
Another employee that Roe had hired to work personal property taxes decided to take a job in the Circuit Clerk's office at about the same time last July.
Another opening had been available for about two years in the personal property section. "Because of improvements in technology, we went from four people to three people in personal property section," Roe said.
"I restructured the entire office to make it function more efficiently," Roe said.
Roe said recently he hired three people. One of the new people hired called last Friday saying he had received another job offer he decided to take. Another person Roe thought he had hired received a pay raise when he indicated he was going to quit his other job and also decided not to take the job in the assessor's office.
"The third person I had hired started today and he is now working," Roe said.
That leaves the office with eight current employees but still two openings.
When those two openings are eventually filed, Roe said his office will return to the 10-employee staff it had when he took office after former Assessor Ronald Craighead retired.
Roe said delays in obtaining information for vehicle property taxes that led to county school districts and other political subdivisions to reset their tax rates this year was not caused by a lack of people in his office but because the information received from the State Assessor's Association was incomplete.
Roe said the reason for the delay in providing updated vehicle assessments came mainly because of a change in the way vehicle market values are obtained by county assessors throughout the state.