548 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
necessary to assess all taxable property in the State. These subor- 
dinates would work on a full-time year-round basis and would be 
paid in accordance with their ability and training. 
Each deputy might be assigned a district, composed of a number of 
counties in thinly populated regions and ‘perhaps a city or 1 or 2 
towns in more thickly populated regions. The deputy would be 
responsible, under the close supervision of the commissioner, for the 
assessment of all taxable property within his district at the full legal 
standard of value. He would be aided in this assessment by experts 
in various lines of valuation and possibly by an advisory committee 
of local citizens appointed by the authorities of the several towns or 
counties composing his district. The experts would be men chosen 
by the commissioner for their fitness in specialized fields of valuation— 
such as timber appraisal, factory appraisal, appraisal of minerals and 
mines, and the like. These experts would ‘travel from one district to 
another, giving help to the deputies in charge. The deputies would, 
of course, have on file up-to-date assessment maps and records of real 
estate sales. 
The completed assessment roll would be open to public inspection, 
and any taxpayer whose assessment had been changed from what it 
was the preceding year would be notified, by mail, of the change. 
Anyone aggrieved could appeal to the deputy, from him to the com- 
missioner, and from him, as a final resort, to the courts. 
The purpose in all of this is to put the assessment on a scientific, 
nonpartisan plane. When the job of assessment is passed from local 
hands to the centralized body, there is not relinquished with it one 
iota of local self-government as now permitted by law. The local 
governments have now no legal authority whatever over the character 
of assessment; that is all determined by the legislature and prescribed 
by statute. The local assessor has no questions of policy to deter- 
mine; he has no legal discretion as to the character of assessment; he 
merely performs, as required by the law, an administrative function 
for the State, the function of determining the true value of all taxable 
property in his district. All that the local government has is the 
power to choose the assessor. The State may take over the job of 
assessment without answering to the indictment that it has removed 
any essential function of local self-government. 
It should be self-evident that this recommendation of a centralized 
assessment is meant to be applied to all property and not only to 
forest property. It is obvious that a great injustice would be done 
to forest property if it were assessed by the State at true value and 
other types of property were assessed locally at less than true value. 
STATE CONTROL AND ASSISTANCE 
In many States it may be impractical to put assessment entirely 
in the hands of State officials, and in others this result may come about 
slowly. In such States efforts should be made to approach as nearly 
as may be to the ideal of centralized assessment. In States where 
assessment is now in the hands of hundreds of towns, county-assess- 
ment districts or assessment districts composed of several towns 
would be a forward step. In States where the county is the assessing 
unit, larger assessment districts might be created by uniting, for this 
purpose, “several small or thinly settled counties. 
