Commissioner Peer Review finds staff training and tax collection lacking in Anson

WADESBORO — Part of the Anson County Board of Commissioners’ ongoing efforts to discover and correct budget deficits has resulted in county leaders requesting that the North Carolina Board of Commissioners perform a peer review study.

David Baker, who is the Director of Tax and Revenue Outreach for the Association of County Commissioners, spearheaded the team put together to conduct the review and came before the Anson County Board of Commissioners to apprise the board of the team’s findings.

Baker began by sharing with the board a brief synopsis of his professional career in accounting, stating, “I started working in local government and property tax areas sometime around 1985, so I have been doing property tax almost forty years now. I was with the Department of Revenue Director of Local Government Division for thirty years, retired from there and been with the association of county commissioners for about six years. One of the services the association provides to the counties is to come in and look at tax offices at the request of commissioners and county managers. In this case, Lenny (County Manager Sossaman) contacted us and I think he discussed with you, us putting together a team and coming in and looking at your tax office, so we did that. My job initially was just to put together a team. We came down and visited the tax office… we talked with all of your employees, interviewed those, took a look at your facilities, everything.”

The team put together by Baker consisted of professionals from neighboring counties who have diverse occupational backgrounds within the financial sector. According to Baker, the team came to Anson in October and began conducting a review of the different divisions within the tax office. On November 15, the completed report was presented to Leonard Sossaman, who then asked Baker to come before the board and apprise commissioners directly of the reports findings.

“Y’all have a lot of really good, hardworking, and dedicated employees working for y’all, we found that out talking to them and interviewing them,” stated Baker at the outset. “With that being said, our charge as a team is to come in and look for places for improvement, things they can do better, maybe even resources to do their job better. Whenever we go over these reports I always tell everyone they tend to be on the negative side because what we are doing is trying to point out places where improvement can be made.”

Beginning by discussing some of the minor issues uncovered by the team, Baker noted an area in need of potential oversight is office security. Baker suggested confirming that all alarms are functioning properly and that cameras be checked for needed adjustments.

Another minor concern Baker shared with the team involved the county’s website.

“The website could be better,” Baker said. “Having one website that I could go to as a citizen where the assessor, the collector, and GIS (Geographic Information System Mapping), that all ties together… online listings would be good… again, that is just an area the county could look into over time.”

Most glaring to Baker and his team, is that there is, “Not a clear mission statement or vision for the office…things get done but nobody actually documents how to do them.”

Baker warned this practice is particularly detrimental when someone is out sick or leaves the work force. The team felt that having cross-trained employees could only benefit staff and customers.

“Employee training is lacking a little bit and there are requirements in the law for your assessor and your appraiser to be certified and the team found that is not being done right now,” Baker shared. “We need to make sure that is being done and there is funding for that,” stated Baker. “It is in the statute, if you are appraising property in North Carolina you have to be certified and all the people on staff here are not. It will help them do their job better and it is also a requirement by law.”

Understanding that the county has been attempting to hire additional workers to strengthen the tax office, Baker lamented that, “The general statute requires that all of your exemptions and present use value (puv) exemptions be reviewed at least one-eighth of the year and currently that is not being done. So by statute that is required to be done so the county really needs to try and correct that compliance review program and then start doing that,” Baker recommended, before adding, “You are not going to be able to do that unless you add some additional staff.”

Baker went on to add that the team felt an ideal number of staff is eight full time employees, ideally ten to twelve, noting that the office currently has only six full time employees.

The team also recommended additional training for staff on the vehicle tax system, a part of the tag and tax program. “The team felt like there is personal property within the county that is not being listed and not being listed correctly. If everybody is putting their property on the books then the tax burden is spreading out to everyone. Anson County collection rate is about 2.5% lower than other surrounding counties similar in size. From a state standpoint, Anson County is about over 4% lower, than the average statewide,” Baker stated. “If you have got 96% of your people paying their taxes and 4% are not, then 4% that are not are causing those that are to pay more than they should.”

He pointed out that not properly collecting tax results in the board panning an inefficient budget. “Remember it is not just about leaving money on the table it is about leaving part of your tax base on the table when your collection rate is low,” Baker said.

The team suggested that an increase in wage garnishments, debt levies, bank attachments, foreclosures and the like would rectify the issue.

Currently Anson County is on an eight-year cycle to conduct appraisals and is behind in preparing for the upcoming 2026 appraisal. The report found that a four-year appraisal plan would be more beneficial for the county and fairer to its citizens.

“You need to start preparing for the upcoming 2026 appraisal… decide what type you need and the best way to go about accomplishing that. Right now the county has nowhere the staff required to do an in-house appraisal,” concluded Baker.

“Just sitting here doing some calculations and by my estimate we are leaving close to a million dollars on the table, is that correct?” inquired Commissioner Lawrence Gatewood.

After some back and forth from the County’s tax assessor Larry Newton, it was determined the amount left on the table each year could be closer to $2.5 million.

“A sizeable amount any way you look at it,” agreed Chairman Jamie Caudle. “We do have some things we can work on within our tax office… some maybe fairly quick and others may take some time,” Caudle cautioned. “We do want to assure our citizens we will make progress. One of the main things I took away from the peer review, and I wanted to mention this tonight, Mr. Baker referenced in his report tonight, the job our employees in the tax office are doing with what they have to work with. They are doing an exceptional job so I want to say thank you to those employees for a job well done, on behalf of the board of commissioners.”

Commissioner Robert Mims made a motion to accept the peer review, seconded by Jarvis Woodburn. It was unanimously approved.