Montgomery County Assessor Jeff Porter attended the Montgomery County R-II School Board meeting on July 9 to talk with board members about his new job as well as the new plat book that was recently published.

The Montgomery County Plat Book includes maps of the county that concentrates on land ownership, acreage and parcel boundaries. It’s the first time in nine years the county had a plat book. The publication is available for purchase for $40 at the Assessor’s Office.

“I went to a different service called Mackin Solutions to get a better clarity so you can read a lot easier, like names on the properties,” Porter said. “A lot of this information was transferred back in May, so a lot of current transactions along I-70 that a lot of people would be interested in are in this plat book.”

Porter also discussed with board members about the update of the real estate program. He said the Vanguard system will be used for the program.

“The old program that (the previous assessor) Mr. (Jerome) Overkamp was on was good for many, many years,” Porter said. “But it became outdated in a lot of things. There’s an old system called Honeycutt system that is used through a program called GovernMENTOR, which is based on the DOS based system. So you can tell right there that it’s time to upgrade.”

Porter said with the new system, the Assessor’s Office will be able to do assessment sheets online.

“Hopefully, that’s available in January,” Porter said. “I’ve already seen the prototype. It looks good. We just got to get everything else working that way, so that’s the objective of that. But with postage rates going up, we have to find ways to do things online the best way we can to save money for constituents.”

Porter became the county assessor in September 2025. He replaced Overkamp, who retired as assessor after 51 years. He has 15 years of political experience, but it’s the first time he is working in county government. He has experience in local and state government.

Porter heads a staff of three full-time workers and four part-time workers.

“I feel pretty good about our team,” Porter said. “I had a clerk, but she’s leaving as she’s expecting a baby. So I’m looking for another clerk. She wants to be a stay at home mom, which is great. She was really good for what she did for us. In all, the staff is really good. I have a lot of seasoned people. I’ve got from 49 years to several 20-year people.”

Porter said he hopes to make more visits to school board meetings in the future.

“I like to meet maybe more than once a year,” Porter said. “I’m thinking maybe twice a year or more as things get going because things will be changing quickly.”

The July 9 board meeting was the first one for Superintendent Dave Samuel and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Stacy Ray. Both started their respective positions on July 1. Samuel comes from the Northeast Randolph County R-IV School District. Dr. Ray joins the administrative staff after working the past 14 years as directors of both curriculum and early childhood at the Hazelwood School District.