‘You Have A Problem’ Tax Assessors Are Told

You’ve got a problem,” said Jim Davis grimly, as the Macon-Bibb County Tax Commissioner mentally surveyed the Jasper County Tax Assessors current conservation use predicament.

The assessors, seeking possible recourses as to how to best handle recent conflicts of conservation use, invited Mr. Davis to the meeting after attending a conservation use class he taught at the Short Course Seminar in Athens.

Mr. Davis, who has more than 25 years tax experience, was one of the founders of Georgia’s conservation use policy. {{more}}

A quorum of board members helped explain the situation to Mr. Davis.

Some 148 new conservation covenants, all applied for in 2002, were inadvertantly listed on the 2002 tax digest even though many of them had been denied by the board prior to the digest being sent to state officials for review.

Initially, a list was to be provided to the tax commissioners office flaggin tax notices which had conservation errors. According to tax maintenance office manager Phyllis Norwood, the list was submitted but she was not certain whether those bills were pulled prior to the digest being sent to the state.

Further, it was explained that the board had not reviewed all conservation applications as in years past but rather only those selected by former chief appraiser John Barnes. Among the applications not reviewed were two churches, one granting a 180-acre convenant.

Mrs. Norwood explained that denial notices had not been mailed and that currently none of the application cards had been signed by the board or recorded in the clerk’s office.

The board then asked Mr. Davis “what do we do now?”

After clarifying that he was suggestions were being offered and that he was not a lawyer, the first advice was to address what was to be done about the denied 2002 applications.

“Approve the ones you want approved and deny the ones you want denied, but it will be hard to do that if they are all already listed on the digest.” Mr. Davis added “Either you grant them all or get legal advice about the predicament. Seek legal counsel.”

He further suggested “establishing a procedure for the future. I would also recommend in the future attaching a type-print memo to each card instead of script writing.”

Further details on the meeting may be found in the December 5 print edition of The Monticello News.