The race for auditor in today’s election is a repeat of the 2010 race featuring Keith and Bossey.
Keith, 58, of Dayton, has been in the county auditor’s office since 1991, serving as chief deputy auditor under A.J. Wagner until 2000, when he was appointed auditor after Wagner was elected to be a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judge. Keith has since won elections to the office three times. He defeated Bossey in 2010 53.4 to 46.6 percent.
This is the first time Keith has had to run against opposition on the same year that his office has completed a complete reappraisal of all properties, which happens every six years. Keith last ran in a reappraisal year in 2002, but he was unopposed.
The reappraisals are not good years for auditors, Keith admitted, because “it just brings everybody’s negative feelings about taxes to the forefront.”
“Twenty years ago auditors tried to avoid this subject like the plague,” Keith said.
But times have changed, Keith said, and county auditors are now going out of their way to try to educate the public about the appraisal process.
But Bossey, 54, of Washington Twp., has seized on the reappraisal process to level a series accusations against Keith, his oversight of the process, and specific practices and results that have come out of this year’s preliminary appraisal figures.
Bossey, who was born in Nigeria, came to this country at age 20, and studied accounting, finance and management, getting a bachelor’s degree from Walsh University and a master’s from Cleveland State University.
He got a job with Deloitte & Touche as an accountant for seven years, then began his own company, Western TradeWinds, Inc., which is a supplier of industrial equipment and supplies.
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