The purchase of two parcels of land behind the building in Madison that houses offices for both the Madison County tax collector and tax assessor would make expansion possible for those offices, which need additional space.
That’s what the Madison County Board of Supervisors determined during its March 3 meeting.
The supervisors asked Greg Higginbotham, the county administrator, to negotiate the purchase of the lots at the rear of the building that is located at 171 Cobblestone Drive in Madison.
The two lots measure a little over three acres and have been appraised at “a little over one million dollars,” said Gerald Steen, who represents District 3 and serves as president of the board.
The county tried to buy property beside the current building but the landowner does not want to sell it, he said.
Noman A. Cannady Jr., Madison County tax assessor, said the space in the current building is maxed out. Some offices of the tax assessor located there are occupied by not just one employee but two, he said. The parking lot there has 40 spaces, with the county using as many as 13 of them, he said.
The county purchased what was once a former bank building in 2012 after it outgrew a building on U.S. 51 in Ridgeland.
The tax assessor and tax collector outgrew the space after the county moved there in less than two years, Steen said.
“Our county is continuing to grow and we’re doing things to help our county continue to grow, and we have to move forward with infrastructure, but we’ve got to have buildings as well,” he said.
C.J. Garavelli, Madison County tax collector, said it’s a logical course of action for the county to purchase the property.“We’re in a convenient location,” he said. “It makes sense to go ahead and lock it up. We’ve got a growing county. We’ve got more and more people coming in.”
Garavelli said he has expanded online payment options by getting credit card fees lowered and eCheck approved for transactions, but residents must do some tasks such as titling and Homestead Exemption in person.
Karl M. Banks, who represents District 4, voiced the opinion that the county should purchase the land so it could expand the offices. He believes the tax assessor and tax collector’s offices need to remain together in a single location to make it convenient for residents. “Buying the land, tying it down is the right thing to do,” he said.
Casey Brannon, who represents District 1, questioned the need to spend money expanding the offices that some residents may visit only once or twice a year. “The millions could be spent on improving intersections, lighting roads where people sit and are inconvenienced twice a day,” he said.
For seven or eight years, the supervisors have been trying to determine how to proceed and provide the tax collector and tax assessor with more room in south Madison County, Steen said.
About four years ago, the supervisors hired Dean and Dean Associates to design a new tax assessor’s office.
The renderings of the exterior showed a one-story building with drive-through lanes for tag renewal and tax collections. An interior layout showed more than 4,200 square feet of space with a 372-square-foot records room, a 475-square-foot lobby and three storage areas.
Those plans would need to be revisited to determine if they would be suitable for the property the county is considering buying, Steen said.
“That would be decided before we make the purchase,” he said.
The funding for the land the county is considering buying would come from a bond issue, he said.
