Assessors ‘Family’ Sets Values
(Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of meeting the community’s public service employees who take care of the residents and businesses in Jasper County and the city of Monticello. This week, Kim Jories introduces us to the folks at the Tax Assessors Office.)
Chief Appraiser Lynn Bentley, Appraiser III Eileen Todd and Clerk Denise Reynolds make up the family of co-workers in the Jasper County Tax Appraiser’s O?ce who value each parcel of land, each residential and commercial property, all boats and airplanes and every conservation easement in Jasper County.The heart of the work for the Tax Assessor’s O?ce is to break down and value every piece of property in Jasper County. It is a big list. It is a huge responsibility. Falling under the purview and oversight of the Department of Revenue and the County Board of Assessors, it is mandated by state law that each county provide an annual county wide tax digest.
The annual tax digest (in essence the registry of all the county’s taxable property for the year) is forwarded to the state. “The values have to be right,” Lynn Bentley emphasized, explaining the tax assessor’s o?ce has to defend the digest values to the state and be able to defend the values to the property owners. There are two annual audits, one that audits the values presented to the state and one audit that helps ensure the procedures and record keeping are done properly.
Lynn was proud to share that they have passed the audits every year since she’s been working as the Chief Appraiser. That is a good thing. A failed audit can result in lost revenue for the county.
“We live and die by the O.C.G.A.(O?cial Code of Georgia Annotated) and the Appraiser Procedures Manual.” Bentley stated. A quick google search on the Georgia Department of Revenue website (dor.georgia.gov) provided an explanation as follows: “In 1997 the Georgia General Assembly passed into law Sec. 48-5-269.1 of the O?cial Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.), which directed the Revenue Commissioner to provide local tax assessing o?cials with uniform procedures to be used in the appraisal of all real and personal property for property tax purposes.”
It helps that Lynn is a detail person, a natural at creating e?cient o?ce systems, an obsessive planner; her walls are neatly covered in highlighted task sheets and calendars, and one who loves a schedule. So much so that she shared there was one time when she was working a job at a pharmaceutical company (with her now co-worker Eileen) that she almost chose to cut her grass one evening because it was Thursday and Thursday is her day to cut grass, rather than join co-workers and clients for a celebratory dinner. “I cut grass on the same day, I do laundry on the same day and I’m the freezer queen. I plan meals that I can grab out of the freezer,” she laughed.
Married 31 years, Lynn and her husband Keith have two sons, Justin 27, and Chad 22, who were ages two and six when Lynn and her family moved to Monticello in 2003.
“I’ve probably moved less than anyone I know,” she said, “other than my mother that is, who still lives in her family home.” Lynn has moved one time in her life—from her family home to her current home she shares with her family after she and her husband were married. Her husband has only moved twice in his life and their sons, having moved to Tifton to attend college at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) loved Tifton so much they stayed.
“I like solitary pursuits when I’m not at work,” Lynn said. A love of plants and gardening had her digging up plants from her husband’s homestead to replant them at their homestead. She even created a greenhouse in her basement to be able to enjoy her plants year round. A self proclaimed music nut, she saw Motley Crue with Ozzy Osbourne as her first concert…when she was 13! She credits her love of music to her parents, having grown up listening to their extensive vinyl collection.
Wanting to become a real estate agent led Bentley down the path to become an appraiser. As travel became more frequent in her pharmaceutical job, she wanted work that kept her closer to home with her children and she had always been interested in real estate. After researching the real estate agent field, she worried the weekend and holiday work and answering calls at all hours that is often required for realtors would have taken her away from her family too often.
Instead, she answered an ad for an appraiser.
Today, tape measure in hand, she visits each new building site, physically measuring all new buildings. She won’t use a laser tape, telling me, “I love a tape measure. I can feel the tape in my hand and I don’t have to worry about it dying. It doesn’t need a battery.” Walking around in work boots measuring buildings and drawing diagrams on graph paper is a favorite part of Lynn’s job.
A drive on the county roads and a trip through the streets of Monticello reveal how many new building permits there are by the homes that have been and are being built. Fiscal Year 2022 (June to June operating budget) saw an increase in 153 new homes from the previous year. Prior to 2022, the average new homes numbered approximately 10-15 per year. To date, Fiscal Year 2023 has seen 237 new homes. Each new home is a new building permit. Each new building permit requires assessment. The work the current three employees perform along with the help from Chris Knight, a seasonal private contractor appraiser, had previously been performed by seven employees.
From Long Island, NY, Eileen Todd’s move south was initially to Florida to work with a generic pharmaceutical company. After her company was sold a few years later, she chose to stay with a part of the original company, making a job transfer to Conyers for the new job. As luck would have it, she met Lynn Bentley, who at the time was also working at the pharmaceutical company in Conyers.
Eileen left her job in Conyers to join Lynn at the Tax Assessor’s o?ce. Now an Appraiser III, she handles the assessments on all personal property, boats, airplanes, business property and conservation easements. “My job is really interesting. I love the small town service. I like people,” Todd said.
When not working, Eileen enjoys time with her daughter Leeanna, 24, and kayaking with her husband Lee on the Ocmulgee River. She loves to read and listen to music. And there is Walter, her 15 year old border collie that she and her husband rescued from the side of a road when Walter was only about three months old. She enjoys taking walks though she doesn’t do it as often as she would like and she loves eating lunch locally in downtown Monticello. Doing the books for her husband’s auto mechanic’s shop also keeps her busy when she’s not at work.
Todd hopes to retire here. “I love it here. We get along great in the o?ce. People here are just nice. Everybody is friendly,” Todd said. “It’s laid back here.”
Denise Reynolds will celebrate 20 years with the Tax Assessor’s O?ce this June. She and her husband of 37 years David Reynolds have three children. They live halfway between their two sons Joshua and Caleb (only 30 minutes either direction) and their daughter Brittany is close by in the Pine Mountain area. They have seven grandchildren, two each with their sons who live nearby and three grandchildren in Pine Mountain with their daughter.
“My love of old houses and gardens brought us to Monticello,” Denise shared. An historic house downtown near the old Hwy. 212 spur caught her attention. In her early days of working in her yard, she would unearth newfound garden surprises with each dig.
Denise also does property transfers for the county, explaining that anything that changes name; a deed for a property that changes hands, a marriage, a divorce and a death can all result in deed transfers. She also makes map changes when Jasper adds new addresses as in the case of land parcel sales that result in new subdivision lots.
“I”m first on the phone. Eileen is first at the door for customers and Lynn is the back up if we’re both busy.” Denise told me, sharing one example of a simple o?ce system that makes everyone’s job easier and their customers more e?ciently served.
Her first employment with the county was with the Jasper County Planning and Zoning o?ce back in the days when it was housed downtown in what is now the Extension O?ce. “When the job came up here, all I had to do was walk across the street,” Denise o?ered. “I love it here. Our o?ce works well together, We have a good camaraderie,” Denise shared. It does seem that way. They know each other’s families and hobbies and favorite plants and favorite places to eat. They finish each other’s sentences.
What does Denise like to do when she’s not working? “Easy,” she said, “I have it all here,” extending her arm Vanna White style to the wall she looks at every day from her desk.
Wallpapered in pictures of her family, her grandchildren’s art and her grown children’s art they drew as children, she said, “ I love spending time with my family. My kids, my grandkids, my husband. And my birds,” she laughed, “I love my birds,” telling me her yard is overflowing with bird feeders. Waterfall trail hikes with her husband are also a favorite, especially when she gets to see a bear like the one they saw ambling along the bank across the river while they were hiking to Anna Ruby Falls.
Open Monday-Friday, 8 am-4:30 pm, the Jasper County Tax Assessor’s O?ce is on the main floor of the Jasper County Courthouse in downtown Monticello.
