Communication between Baldwin County’s commissioners and the Baldwin County Board of Tax Assessor’s Office (BCTAO) hasn’t been the best in recent years. Both sides will admit this.
With this in mind, the two groups met last week for a two-plus hour meeting in the county commission chambers at the new Baldwin County Annex.
In the end, it became clear county commissioners were giving the six-member Board of Tax Assessors and Chief Appraiser Wade Williams another year to resolve some of their issues. This comes after Commissioner Scott Little and Commissioner Andrew Strickland indicated they’d be willing to replace the entire six-member board. This is what happened in nextdoor Jones County, where county commissioners opted to replace the entire board.
Williams and the BCTAO have faced scrutiny since the Georgia Department of Revenue released a relatively scathing 77-page “performance review” of the BCTAO in January. Among the findings was “significant lack in understanding” of the software system used by the office. Williams admitted that the Tyler software system is “way more sophisticated” and that there has been a large learning curve.
Also cited was a series of valuation errors that incorrectly shifted $371,000 from public utilities to homeowners in the 2024 tax digest.
Also, Williams’ managerial style was noted in the report.
“There were multiple complaints regarding Williams’ managerial capabilities from employees, coworkers, taxpayers, and elected officials,” according to the report. “Several individuals stated that Williams could be overbearing at times when interacting with staff and taxpayers. It was also reported that on multiple occasions he did not respond to emails or return phone calls in a timely manner, and he would often arrive to work late and leave early. It was noted that Williams reports and approves his own time.”
Harry Keim, chairman of the Board of Tax Assessors, rattled off numerous changes that the board is making, going through a Power Point slides dealing with “Personnel Hiring,” “Improvement of training on the Tyler Computer System,” as well as “Communication must be strengthened to ensure Baldwin County operates more effectively.”
Property values around Georgia and the rest of the country increased rapidly following the COVID pandemic. Statewide, according to the Georgia Association of Realtors, the median sale price of a home in Georgia increased from $302,332 to $448,554 between the end of 2020 and the end of 2025, representing a 48.3 percent increase.
Higher sale prices equal higher property valuations from the chief appraiser. In turn, this means that more property owners will file an appeal with the Board of Tax Assessors. This has created higher levels of appeals in Baldwin County and other places, which inevitably has made it harder for the Board of Assessors to keep up. In other words, the job of being a tax assessor is much more difficult than it was a few years ago.