Assessor successor: Jeanine Smith retires, Dave Hieber hired
Today marks end of Smith’s almost 30 years of municipal work, 9 years with township
Jeanine Smith’s last day as White Lake Township’s assessor is today.
Though she’s only been with the township for nine years, her municipal career extends back to 1994.
Back then, when she applied for an opening for Flint, “I didn’t even know what assessing was,” she said.
Smith had been working for Flint’s police department and saw a city’s assessing job opening. She became the lead candidate for the job, based on test results and her previous experience working as an administrative assistant in a real estate office.
Smith had earned an accounting degree from the Detroit College of Business and had good skills working with numbers. She went on to get certified in assessing by taking classes at Lansing Community College and through the Michigan Assessors Association, until she earned Level 3 credentials and a job as Flint’s deputy assessor.
She started her assessing career right after Proposition A went into effect. Since then, the law has been tweaked, she said, a lot.
“It can be stressful, because it keeps changing,” she said. “I’m not saying they’re wrong or right but adding exemptions makes the work much more complicated than when I started.”
She kept up with the changes in the law and said, “I know my job well. I’m not trying to brag. I just do. If you don’t know your job well, then why are you doing it?” she said.
During the hectic early years, she said, her husband Mike Smith was working as a plumber and they were raising three children. Her whole family supported her efforts, she said. Mike Smith is now retired. Their kids are now 40, 39 and 36 and the Smith’s have four grandchildren.
She decided against pursuing the highest certification, Level 4, because she didn’t need it for the White Lake Township job.
She arrived at the White Lake job in 2003, and faced the same challenges as every other municipal employee during the great recession. Starting in 2007, she said, “we lost a lot of people, but we tried to eliminate jobs based on retirements.”
The Flushing resident said she has never minded the commute, because it’s “my time to relax,and it’s not a bad drive.”
Assessments can be complicated and, for some homeowners, frustrating to understand.
Smith is considered an expert with tricky questions, and has offered to be on-call for her former colleagues, said Jodi McClure, who started as a secretary in the assessing department five years ago.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with her for the last five years,” said McClure, who has earned her certification in assessment administration.
On Monday, “we walked in and she had made us a taco pie for lunch,” McClure said. “She cares about us.”
Smith is the kind of employee who doesn’t leave the building for her lunch and is typically accessible.
“If a resident has a tricky question, we know she has the answer,” McClure said. “We always count on her. She told us we can call her with any question, and she means it, too.”
Her colleagues describe her as very patient and willing to explain assessing to even the most-frustrated property owner.
“If somebody is still angry when they leave, it’s because you couldn’t make them happy,” Smith said. “It’s rare here. We have pretty good citizenship here in White Lake.”
“Jeanine has been a real asset to the township,” said Rik Kowall, the township’s supervisor. “I’ll miss her. She’s been very cooperative to work with, very much a team player.”
One of her key skills, he said, involved making sure the legal details of each special-assessment district — for such projects as road paving — were accurately recorded.
Her habit of surprising colleagues with an occasional meal “wasn’t a job requirement,” Kowall said, laughing, “but was muchappreciated.”
Over the last two weeks, Smith has been working with her successor, David Hieber. Township officials voted to give him a two-year contract, with an optional one-year extension. Hieber is the former Oakland County manager of equalization. He has a Level 4 assessor certification and has taught classes around the state.
“He’s highly qualified and has good credentials,” Kowall said. “He knows assessing from the county level, which is easily adapted … I think he’ll do a great job.” .. Hieber has a two-year contract with the township and an option to extend the agreement for one year. He worked for Oakland County from 1994 until last November, when he was suspended, then fired for what county officials said was a personnel issue. State records show no complaints and no disciplinary action.