It’s not uncommon for someone who works in a government office to challenge his or her boss in an election. After all, a staff member would have an insider’s view of how the elected official is doing and how things are running in the office.

Inevitably, a challenge from within causes hard feeling and division within the office as office politics gives way to electoral politics.

Assessor Dave Mattens, a Democrat, is facing a challenge from Republican Mary Engle, an appraiser and long-time employee in his office. Engle’s candidacy has put Mattens on the defensive as she’s made a number of pointed critiques. Mattens likes to focus on his accomplishments, but felt obligated to divulge embarrassing revelations of his own about his opponent and employee.

Engle, who’s worked under three different assessors during 16 years on the job, claims she decided to run because she’s disappointed in Mattens’ lack of leadership. She said he promised to bring in things like performance reviews to the office, but failed to do so. She blames a series of errors in the office on his lack of oversight.

“It’s a result of being unorganized and not having proper procedures in place,” he said.

While Mattens has partially blamed the errors on cuts in staffing, Engle said there’s more than enough employees in the office. In fact, she said the office is top heavy, with three managers for a staff of 17. That will change if she wins, she said. Since she’s an accredited appraiser, she can even share in the workload. And just as importantly, she said being out in the field will help her keep better tabs on how the office is running.

“I really think we need to get people in elected office who know how to do the job,” she said.

Mattens isn’t afraid to criticize right back. He said the majority of his staff supports him. He claims Engle just isn’t management material.

“It’s important to have someone in the office with management experience and budget experience,” he said.

In addition, Mattens questioned Engle’s ability to understand the many technicalities of the job. He emphasized the fact that she has failed a second-level appraiser course three times, while he has passed four courses with high scores in just his four years in office. He said he was sitting next to her in one of the classes and was shocked when she couldn’t even get 70 percent in a course about her own field of work. His score was nearly perfect.

“If you don’t have a thorough understanding of your own field, how can you expect to run the office?” he asked.

Engle explained that she’s “a hands-on learner” and not particularly good at taking tests. She pointed out that the course is not required for accreditation.

But what Mattens most enjoys talking about is his success in spearheading the purchase and implementation of new computing system for both the assessor’s and treasurer’s office, which work closely on property tax information. It replaces a ridiculously outdated legacy system that was error prone because of a tendency to not save changes. It was so bad, he said, that only one guy in the world understood how to program it.

Mattens said the new system will prevent the types of errors that came to light early in the year. His office made mistakes in a Camano fire department levy and the Coupeville school district’s maintenance and operations levy. As a result, tax bills had to be re-sent to Camano residents. The Coupeville schools will have to wait a year to collect the full amount of the levy.

In addition, the assessor’s office has been late with filing the certification of levies for the collection of taxes every year Mattens has been in office. On the other hand, Mattens points out that he’s dramatically reduced the backlog of land segregations, which ultimately means fairer taxes for everyone.

Another controversy that’s touched the race involves the current use program in which landowners get a tax break for using their property for things like agriculture or timber. It’s a complicated story with no clear answers about who is being truthful — and who’s bending the facts.

As Mattens explained it, last year Coupeville landowner Ken Pickard talked to Engle about transferring his farmland into a trust in his name. But Engle, as the appraiser in charge of the program, demanded that Pickard first sign a lease with her husband, who historically farms the land, Mattens claims. Mattens said he learned about what happened and verbally reprimanded Engle in front of two other managers and took her off the current use program.

“To me, it was just a blatant abuse of power. I was very distraught over the whole thing,” he said.

But Engle tells a very different story. She said she wasn’t aware that her husband farmed Pickard’s land. Her husband has leases on 1,600 acres. She said she was just following state law, Mattens’ direction and a note in the file that stated the landowner needed to provide proof of current use. She said she didn’t specify that Pickard needed to have a signed lease with her husband. She said Mattens just granted the current use to Pickard without proof, which is contrary to law. She said she wasn’t reprimanded and her personnel file proves it; there’s nothing but positive reviews in her file. She said it’s completely inappropriate for Mattens to publicly claim that he reprimanded an employee when he didn’t.

Mattens counters that Engle clearly knew that her husband farms the land in question and even told him that Pickard “needs to sign a lease with my husband.” He said state law says the appraisers don’t need documentation necessarily of current use, but can just look and see that the property is being farmed. He even checked on his interpretation with the state Department of Revenue. He said he did verbally reprimand Engle, but didn’t do anything in writing.

“I was being a nice guy and it probably should warranted a written reprimand, but she’s an OK appraiser,” he said.

Dave Mattens

Party: Democrat

Age: 60

Residence: 23-year Freeland resident.

Education: Two associate degrees from Southwestern Michigan College, bachelor degree in geological engineering from Michigan Technological University, completed a variety of courses in appraising, real estate and computing.

Family: Wife, Diane, and three teenaged children.

Career: Current assessor, 18-year career as a commissioner officer in NOAA Corps, seven years as electronics technician and air traffic controller.

Mary Wilson Engle

Party: Republican

Age: 41

Residence: Coupeville, lifelong Whidbey resident. Grew up in Oak Harbor.

Education: 1987 graduate of Oak Harbor High School, accredited appraiser.

Family: Husband, Bob, and two children.

Career: 16 years as appraiser, owner of numerous small businesses, farmer.