50 years later, it's still about customer service

Carl Smith took his first oath of office as the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector in 1947. He did not know how long he'd stay. He was only guaranteed a job two years at a time and he had made more money lawyering for Shell Oil.

He did stay on, and at 88, he reports daily to his office.

"I still enjoy public service. Now, I'm not the most diplomatic guy in town, but I'm always there. You've got to like people, especially in the '90s. People won't stand for poor service," he said.

Once, in the days when everyone's car registration expired at the same time, Smith followed a line of people out the door, out of the courthouse, and around the building. He approached a lady who, judging by the papers she was holding, was in the wrong line.

"I said, 'Ma'am, you don't have to stand in this line,' and she said 'That's okay, I don't have anything else to do today,'" Smith said.

These days his mind is on streamlining the motor vehicle registration process. Harris County, after all, has three million people and a whole lot of cars. He has been looking into an electronic kiosk, much like an automated teller machine, that would print computer-generated registration stickers for customers.

"You wouldn't have the inventory of pre-printed registration stickers to protect. But I don't know if customer service would be improved. You still have to have proof of insurance," Smith said.

Smith dislikes it that motorists must prove that they have liability insurance to register their vehicles. It isn't his job to enforce the law, he said, and he believes it forces the poor to break the law.

"I don't believe in punitive legislation. Back when you paid a poll tax, you had to show that paper to vote. Proof of insurance discriminates against the poor," he said.

He has that issue and dozens more taxing questions for the next Legislature.

Carl Smith

He doesn't travel to Austin as much as he did not too many years ago. Other tax collectors do the legwork now.

Brazos County Tax Assessor-Collector Buddy Winn, chairman of TACA's Jurisprudence Committee, said he learned a lot from Smith and his chief of staff, Jack Grace, about getting the attention of the folks in Austin, but mostly, he learned to mention Smith's name.

"The name Buddy Winn didn't mean squat to a lot of folks, so I just told them that Carl Smith sent me, and I had their ear. He's brought a lot of respect to our office," Winn said.

Smith lobbied plenty in his time. He helped get four-year terms for county officials, and later, he proposed what came into being as the Texas County and District Retirement System (TCDRS). He and Grace pressed the Texas Legislature for the Over-65 Exemption on property taxes that saved senior citizens $277 million dollars from 1986-1995, according to his own published report. Later he and Grace won legislative approval for a one-year "grace period" on that exemption in case someone forgot to make their claim.

Grace, a retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel, took his heart doctor's advice and has turned in his briefcase for a bass boat this year.

"His doctor told him to get out of the office, so I don't blame him," Smith said.

He told a gathering of tax-collecting colleagues in November that he has no retirement plans. He was already working on the next fiscal year's budget and he didn't want to leave unfinished business behind.

Some might say he finished a lot of business. Fifty years ago, just six months after Smith went to work for Shell as a corporate lawyer, a friend in the tax collector's office approached him about coming to work for the county. Smith was bored out of his mind, he said, and so he entered public service, looking for something interesting to do for a little while.