News

Tax assessor retiring on Dec. 31

Stan Duncan speaks at a meeting of the county Historic Resources Commission in this 2013 file photo.

By Bill Moss, Published: December 18, 2015

Stan Duncan, Henderson County’s tax assessor for the past 12 years, is retiring on Dec. 31.

“It’s time,” he said in an interview. “I read somewhere that every few years a corporation should change leadership and I think that sounds right. You don’t want to start something and not see it through but you’ll never see them all through. The county’s been very good to me and you can quote me on that. I’ve never had a problem with any of the boards I’ve served.”
He felt a little envious, he said, when his wife, Terry, took semiretirement last October. He decided he would like more free time.
“I’m going to get back on my wife’s honey-do list,” he said. “You can’t add years to the end of your life.”
A Henderson County native and graduate of East Henderson High School, Duncan became a “revenooer” — as Barney Google and Snuffy Smith would call the work — soon after he graduated from Appalachian State University. He served for more than 20 years as a valuation specialist for the N.C. Department of Revenue — in which capacity he was once hung in effigy outside a rural county courthouse where he had been advising a revaluation. He is the current president of the North Carolina Tax Collectors Association and a past president of the state Association of Assessing Officers. In 2013 Gov. Pat McCrory appointed him as chair of the Geographic Information Coordinating Council, a state board created to foster cooperation among government agencies, universities and the private sector, creating policy and resolving technical issues related to North Carolina’s geographic information and GIS technology.
Henderson County tax assessor since 2003, Duncan was put in charge of all tax administration with the retirement of longtime Tax Collector Terry Lyda in 2008.
“Stan has done a great job as the collector getting the appraisals done and getting the money in for the county,” said Tommy Thompson, chairman of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners. “He chose to retire early. I know he’s of the age to do so because I was in grammar school with him. He’s decided to give it up and we’ll work it out and go from there.”
Duncan’s retirement may trigger a change in the management structure of the tax office. Duncan and County Attorney Russ Burrell are currently the only department heads who report directly to the Board of Commissioners, not the county manager.
“Stan had a contract with the county commissioners that he was directly responsible to them,” he said. “Upon his retirement and my recognition that he was retiring I have initially signed a document saying that in his absence the office would be under the control of the county manager. We will have this on our agenda come Monday, Jan. 4, to determine whether or not we want to leave it there.”
The interim arrangement under County Manager Steve Wyatt may become permanent.
“I think Mr. Wyatt does an absolutely wonderful job,” Thompson said. “I’m inclined to go with the county manager doing the managerial part of it. In the conversations I’ve had, there doesn’t seem to be an overwhelming idea to do anything different from that. That’s my preference at the present time.”

“We certainly wish Stanley the very best,” he added. “He has done a good job getting the money in for the county,” consistently achieving a collection rate of 99 percent. “You can’t beat that. That’s as high as you’ll find anywhere in the state.”