AMSTERDAM — After two months, the city is still without an assessor.

The former assessor, Michael Chiara, retired at the end of July and spent the entire month using sick and vacation time. Currently the office is staffed by one full-time clerk.

“Basically I don’t know where to throw myself,” clerk Sandra Carriola said.

Carriola is in the process of sending out exemption renewal forms for STAR, disability and age exemptions. She said she could expect about 2,000 people to come through her office between the middle of the month and Dec. 1.

Carriola said there hasn’t been an instance where she couldn’t help someone who has come into the office, but she does things she normally wouldn’t do if a full-time assessor were in the office.

Corporation Counsel Gerard DeCusatis said the assessor’s office would be instrumental in Alderman Joseph Isabel’s proposal to create property registration legislation for out-of-town property owners. The assessor’s office would ensure that the out-of-town property owners are registered and would charge the owners’ tax bill for noncompliance.

Mayor Ann Thane said she received more applications for the city assessor’s position than she thought and has narrowed the field to two “promising” candidates.

The Common Council has still not made a decision about Thane’s idea to change the assessor’s position from among the competitive class of the Civil Service to a six-year mayoral and Common Council appointment.

Council members requested more information from the state Office of Real Property Services in July.

Thane said most of the candidates she interviewed were supportive of the six-year appointment.

Thane argues that evaluating the position every six years would ensure the health of the department and encourage productivity and accountability. Her opponents on this issue argue that a six-year appointment would cause the position, which should be objective, to become politically linked.

Thane said once an assessor is hired, she doesn’t think the person would conduct a revaluation of the properties in the city, as Chiara decided not to do. Instead the assessor would evaluate the work completed by Chiara, determine staffing needs and “improve the status of the office.”

Chiara, who served as city assessor for more than 25 years, was asked to complete a revaluation project during his last two years in office, but did not file his work with the Office of Real Property Services because he feared the effect on the city’s property owners. Currently the city’s equalization rate is at around 70 percent, meaning the state determined the city’s properties are assessed for tax purposes at 70 percent of market or true value.