District Judge Jeffrey Payton on Thursday granted a change of venue motion in the Sequoyah County Board of County Commissioners’ Feb. 24 accusation for removal of County Assessor Brandy Dobbs, and set a 9 a.m. May 5 date to begin a jury trial in Muskogee County District Court.

The commissioners are also seeking the suspension of Dobbs from the assessor’s office, having cited as many as 20 instances of “willful maladministration in violation of her statutory duties.”

Thursday’s proceedings were the second hearing in the case, and addressed an objection filed by Dobbs’ attorney, Steve Hickman from the Tulsa law firm of Frasier, Frasier and Hickman, as to the sufficiency of the allegations made by the commissioners.

On March 17, the commissioners filed their amended accusations, and Hickman had until March 27 to respond. In Hickman’s March 26 filing with the court, he still claimed the accusations lacked specificity.

During Thursday’s hearing, Hickman cited several amended accusations that, generally speaking, failed to provide sufficient details to support the allegations.

After addressing 10 of the almost 20 accusations, Hickman told Payton “those are our objections to the specificity on the amended accusations.”

LeFlore County District Attorney Kevin Merritt, who was assigned to represent the plaintiff when Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp recused himself from the case, did not agree. And, as it turned out, neither did Payton.

Prior to Thursday’s hearing, Merritt presented Hickman with two boxes of discovery material that Payton had recommended at the initial hearing on March 6.

Following attorneys’ remarks regarding the accusa- tions, Payton was ready to move on.

“It sounds like to me that there needs to be some depositions taken or some discovery done to narrow down so everybody knows where everybody’s coming from,” Payton told the attorneys.

Merritt then reminded the judge of the “issue of suspension that the commissioners had requested in their initial accusations.”

Hickman countered that evidence is needed before any suspension should be considered, and added that he still doesn’t understand why Dobbs should be suspended.

“From our perspective, the tax commission, the man that’s upset, he agrees that everything that she was told to do on her work pass for compliance, she’s done,” Hickman told the court. “He doesn’t think she’s going to do it next year, but she’s done it all for this year. And the year has gone out until, I guess the next thing that something has to go out is in the fall.

“The other thing that we’re in the midst of is that on April 22, the auditor’s coming in to see where they are on all this stuff, and what they base whether they’re going to keep her in noncompliance” or return the county to compliance. “I think to suspend her, you’re going to have to take some evidence and so forth. So I’m not sure that it’s going to get anywhere. Even if she is suspended, it’s not going to change anything.”

After Payton set the jury trial for May 5, which is just over three weeks away, Merritt agreed that the quick turnaround negates the need for suspension.

Background

The commissioners’ accusations are that Dobbs allowed the assessor’s office to be designated as Level One non-compliant by the State Board of Equalization (SBOE), such designation resulting from Dobbs’ failure to satisfy the requirements of the equalization study conducted by the Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC). The county is currently the only county in Oklahoma classified as Level One non-complaint.

The assessor’s office was subsequently designated as Level Two non-compliant by the SBOE, despite numerous attempts by the OTC to provide necessary guidance. Notably, the county is the only county classified as Level Two non-compliant.

The commissioners believe the office remains on a trajectory for Level Two non-compliance by December 2025.

The commissioners further believe failures in the assessor’s office for tax years 2023 and 2024 resulted in a financial loss to the county and its school districts in excess of $600,000, losses that will continue to compound annually for years to come, and can no longer be rectified.

The commissioners claim that Dobbs’ actions affected the chargeable valuations used to determine state aid for school districts, leading to a shortfall of $400,000 in school budgets for 2024. The school budgets are expected to take another hit in August 2025.

In addition, the commissioners claim that failures beginning in 2020 resulted in a loss of about $250 million in taxable value, including an additional $82 million due to neglected adjustments, which compound year after year.

Additionally, the commissioners cited instances of procedural failures, as well as clerical errors, discrepancies and insufficiencies that affect other county offices and county taxpayers.

On Feb. 12, the commissioners voted unanimously to launch an inquiry for an accusation of removal of Dobbs as assessor, shifting Dobbs’ fate from the commissioners to the district attorney’s office. After that meeting, District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers said audits that had been conducted and input received from the OTC were important in the commissioners’ decision to elevate the proceedings.

Because he represents all the county elected officials, Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp recused himself from the case. LeFlore County District Attorney Kevin Merritt has been assigned to represent the prosecution.

Cause for removal

Oklahoma statutes stipulate reasons (22 O.S. § 1181, OSCN 2025) for removing an elected official from office.

“Any officer not subject to impeachment elected or appointed to any state, county, township, city, town or other office under the laws of the state may, in the manner provided in this article, be removed from office for any of the following causes: First — Habitual or willful neglect of duty, which, for a state officer, shall include, but not be limited to, knowingly giving false testimony to a committee of either house of the Legislature, knowingly engaging in operations beyond the constitutional or statutory authority delegated to the agency that the officer is employed by or serves, or repeatedly refusing to provide information to a committee, either house or a member of the Legislature in a timely manner. For the purposes of this section, “timely manner” means no more than 15 business days from the date the request for information was received by the agency, unless extended by written agreement.

Second — Gross partiality in office.

Third — Oppression in office.

Fourth — Corruption in office.

Fifth — Extortion or willful overcharge of fees in office.

Sixth — Willful maladministration.

Seventh — Habitual drunkenness.

Eighth — Failure to produce and account for all public funds and property in his or her hands, at any settlement or inspection authorized or required by law.”

Hickman maintains Dobbs has not violated any reasons in this statute.

Dobbs has declined comment.

Following the plan

Emily Haxton, OTC external communications and press coordinator, said in a Feb. 13 prepared statement said the OTC “remains concerned about whether the Sequoyah County Assessor will take the necessary steps to address the assessment deficiencies that resulted in a Category II non-compliance finding by the State Board of Equalization (SBOE). Additionally, there are ongoing concerns about the consistent application of proper valuation methodologies for Sequoyah County in future years.”

Furthermore, Haxton said the SBOE seems inclined to escalate penalties against the assessor’s office.

“During the December 1, 2024, SBOE meeting, some board members stated that if Sequoyah County’s assessment deficiencies are not corrected by the June 2025 meeting, they are prepared to move the county to Category III non-compliance,” Haxton’s statement said.

But Hickman says Dobbs has simply been following a course of action set forth by the OTC. He says whenever Dobbs was given a course of action, even if the plan deviated from the way the office had done business for years, “she’s gone in and done it differently.”

“In fact, she’s gone in and checked, what we in the legal business call the green books — the Oklahoma statutes, and found other things, and has corrected them,” Hickman said in defense of Dobbs.

“Ms. Dobbs has worked at the assessor’s office for a number of years, after she had worked in the real estate-related business many years before. She became chief deputy, and then when the county assessor resigned, the board of county commissioners appointed her, and she continued running the office as she had been taught,” Hickman explained. “About that time, the state has been more careful about teaching officers how to do their work. They’ve (the state) run a number of classes, and she and her staff have attended all the classes and learned a lot of things and have changed things, so she’s doing the best she can with what she knows, and as she learns something new, she does it right.”

Dobbs says she and her chief deputy are required to complete 60 hours of continuing education every three years, and that each member of her staff is required to complete 30 hours of continuing education in a three-year cycle in order to work for the county assessor’s office.

Records show that Dobbs has completed 117 hours in the current cycle.