The Columbia County Board of Commissioners will discuss whether to enter into an agreement with C3 AI for property appraisal assistance for the Board of Assessors at the next meeting.
The agreement was on the agenda for the Management and Internal Services Committee meeting on Tuesday, where County Manager Scott Johnson said residents are receiving their property assessments in the mail.
“It is always a tough time for us because the citizens don’t really understand we have not set the millage rate yet. We are basing it on values,” Johnson said. “The assessor’s office works diligently to make sure they give you the most fair assessment that they can. As you know we are bound by law as to how close we have to be to the market. The market is driving this. Columbia County is continuing to be a place that people chose to live, therefore our property values are continuing to go up.”
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To help streamline the assessment process, the county is looking at using C3 AI, which Johnson said will run AI in the background to ensure assessments are as fair as possible and use as much information as possible. The program can also get more information than one appraiser can by looking at a few comps.
“This is running constant calculations and computations in the background,” Johnson said. “What we’re trying to do here, while this is an expensive piece of software, it is one that I feel like will be in the best interest of the taxpayer. It’s the fairest way to make sure we’re accurate when we’re providing these assessments and I think that’s always been our intent.”
The agreement is for five years, and the cost is $250,000 per year. The first year the funds will come from TAVT and after that from the tax assessor budget.
The committee ultimately voted to move the item to the debate agenda to go before the full board of commissioners.
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Bobby Christine update
District 2 Commissioner and MIS committee member Trey Allen read an email sent to the commissioners by District Attorney Bobby Christine. He is in the U.S. Army National Guard and earlier this year was called to active service. Last month Christine was nominated, and later confirmed, for Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army (TJAG).
In the letter he spoke about how when he was first called to duty, his return date was Aug. 5 and the county was continuing to pay his supplemental salary, but his state salary has not been paid during this time. However, with his new appointment, his return date is unknown, and he asked that his supplemental pay from the county be suspended at this time as a way to save the county money during this time.
“I admittedly am a very close, personal friend of Mr. Christine’s,” Allen said. “I know very well he is making significantly less on military duty than he does in civilian life serving our nation right now. I don’t think this community has any idea of how much exactly he and his family gives to this county, state and union. I just wanted that on record for those might be confused about what is happening with that office he is continuing to serve, continuing to lead an incredible office. I would argue the most effective District Attorney’s office in the state, if not the Southeast and now he’s not even asking for any compensation to continue in that role.”
