County assessor questions board transparency; public comments highlight law-enforcement staffing concerns

Hailey Wagner, the Curry County assessor, used the elected-officials portion of the Dec. 3 meeting to thank staff for delivering tax-season services and then sharply criticized the boardand county operations staff for how an internal accounting and audit issue was handled.

Wagner said she had emailed board members earlier in 2025 about concerns involving a county employee and later brought documentation showing that her office had identified discrepancies in potential refund-credit distributions. Wagner read an email from the Department of Revenue that the assessor said corroborates her account: the DOR message requests follow-up after the assessor provided additional information about distribution discrepancies. Wagner told the board she also had other emails she could make public and said the board and Director of Operations had information before budget adoption that was not disclosed to the budget committee or taxpayers.

"These are the facts, and this is what transparency looks like," Wagner said, and she urged county residents to keep demanding accountability. Wagner said the issue was not just a larger internal accounting error but also an earlier $64,000 county-general entitlement that the board failed to disclose prior to adopting the budget.

Public comment earlier in the meeting also focused on law-enforcement staffing. Multiple speakers, including Georgia Cockerham and Bruce Cockerham, challenged commissioners' public statements about deputy counts and argued the county had at times only one patrol deputy available when jail staffing demands required reassignment. One public commenter said he had collected signatures for a recall effort and disputed commissioners' characterizations of local support levels.

Commissioners responded in the meeting: the chair said the sheriff had refused a proposed CRO strategic plan and that Brookings PD had asked the sheriff for data that had not been provided. Commissioners acknowledged the staffing strain, noted hiring and reassignments (one corrections deputy moved to patrol; three corrections positions remain open), and said they were pursuing solutions, including bargaining discussions and potential inter-agency agreements.

The meeting record reflects disagreement between the assessor and the board over who first raised the distribution issue with the Department of Revenue; Wagner asserted her office raised it and read DOR correspondence she said supports that timeline. The board did not take a formal vote on those charges during the meeting; Wagner said she would provide her emails to the public.