‘I am proud of the progress’: Madison Co. Tax Collector details plans to modernize office
Computer operating system has been in place for more than 30 years. The Madison County Tax Assessor’s Office in Mississippi has been run by hand-written ledgers and decades-old computer software for years. Tax Collector C.J. Garavelli, who was elected to his first term last year, plans to modernize the office and is planning to ask the Board of Supervisors to approve a contract updating the office's computer operating system. He has already hired a staff accountant and plans to present a contract to update the system. The Tax Collector's Office has faced criticism in recent years for its failure to modernise and for not being able to accurately perform bank reconciliations or make accurate bank deposits.
Publicado : hace un mes por Anthony Warren en
RANKIN COUNTY, Miss. (WLBT) - Several major changes are on tap for the Madison County Tax Assessor’s Office, which for years has been run using hand-written ledgers and decades-old computer software.
Tax Collector C.J. Garavelli discussed his plans to modernize the office that serves Mississippi’s sixth-largest county in an exclusive interview with WLBT.
He tells us he’s already hired a staff accountant, and he’s planning to ask the Board of Supervisors next week to approve a contract updating the office’s computer operating system.
“That was part of my campaign promise. I was going to update the operating systems and the accounting software that’s in the office,” he said. “That’s on the board agenda now for Monday.”
Garavelli was elected to his first term last year. He replaces longtime Tax Collector Kay Pace, who retired at the end of 2023.
His election came as county leaders were investigating a $618,000 bookkeeping discrepancy in Pace’s office.
The discrepancy occurred because the county overpaid itself for collecting property taxes for the cities of Madison, Ridgeland, and Canton.
Under agreements with those municipalities, the tax collector would receive a $75,000-a-year commission for collecting ad valorem taxes on their behalf. That commission, in turn, would come off the top of a portion of each month’s receipts until the $75,000 cap was reached.
However, there was no mechanism in place to tell the office when the cap was reached, and the person who had been in charge of doing that had retired.
“They fixed that last year under Kay Pace’s administration,” he said. “So, that’s been fixed.
“What I’ve done is I’ve hired a full-time accountant. She had 30 years of accounting and financial management experience,” he continued. “They did not have an accountant on staff.”
Garavelli also spent time in his first three months interviewing firms to update and help manage the office’s computer systems.
He plans to present a contract to the board next week for the Madison-based Data Systems Management.
“They’re experienced, they’re headquartered here. So, I think it’s going to be a good partnership with my office going forward,” he said.
The Tax Collector’s Office has come under fire in recent years, in part, for its failure to modernize.
In 2021, auditors said that failure led to the office not being able to accurately perform bank reconciliations or make accurate bank deposits.
“The Tax Collector’s Office uses a largely manual spreadsheet for the tracking of collections and disbursements in place of accounting software,” auditors wrote. “As such, the operation of the manual spreadsheet increases the likelihood of errors in operational balances, journal entries, and reconciliations.”
Garavelli says the last contract for a computer operating system for his office was put in place in 1992. However, he said that doesn’t mean the systems have not been updated since then.
Either way, he believes a new operating system, coupled with new accounting software, could help address those issues.
“I am proud of the progress we have made over my first few months,” he said. “And I will continue to work hard for the taxpayers of Madison County to provide the most efficient and professional Tax Collector’s Office possible.”
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