The Madison Board of Supervisors took a step forward in providing a new office in Madison for the county tax assessor.
The supervisors recently voted to purchase 3.7 acres behind the county-owned building in Madison, located at 171 Cobblestone Drive, across from Mama Hamil’s restaurant, that houses both the tax collector and tax assessor.
The board OK’d the land purchase from Madison 51 Development LLC, represented by Josh Harkins, for “slightly over $1 million,” said Gerald Steen, who represents District 3 and serves as president of the board.
A new building for the tax assessor will be constructed on the property. The tax collector will remain in the current building but will occupy all the space after the tax assessor moves into the new building.
The county has funding available from its $300 million bond money to purchase the property and construct the building, Steen said. Most of the bond money will be used for road improvements and some will fund remodeling of the courthouse in Canton, he said.
Supervisors Casey Brannon of District 1 and Trey Baxter of District 2 voted against the purchase of the land.
Brannon, the only supervisor to speak about the land purchase during the Nov. 3 board meeting, said he didn’t see the need to expand the office that some residents may visit just once or twice a year. In the March 3 meeting of the supervisors, he said the millions the building will cost would be better spent on “improving intersections, lighting roads” where residents are inconvenienced daily.
The next step will be for Norman A. Cannady Jr., the tax assessor for Madison County, and Greg Higginbotham, the county administrator, to work with Alan Grant, an architect and principal at Dean Architecture, to design the exterior of the new building, Steen said.
Steen hopes the county will be able to take construction bids on the project between the first and second quarters of next year. He expects construction will take 12-14 months.
The offices of the tax assessor and tax collector are busy and need more room to keep up with the growth of the county, Steen said.
Cannady told the board during its March 3 meeting that 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, the tax collector for Madison County, 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 in the March 3 board meeting that 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.
For several 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.
