Bibb tax commissioner’s race pits ex-Mayor C. Jack Ellis and longtime tax office deputy

The race to become tax commissioner of Bibb County might otherwise have been an afterthought.

Tax commissioner, after all, isn’t the highest-profile gig. Taxes are a fact of civilized life. Those who oversee them don’t tend to inspire the masses.

But when one of region’s most recognizable — and some would say polarizing — former mayors announced his candidacy for the post, the campaign became one to watch.

C. Jack Ellis, often controversial or viewed as such as a two-term mayor, was the first African-American elected to the seat in Macon.

For Ellis, who served from late 1999 until 2007, it was the only elective office he has held.

“All of my adult life has been in service to either my country or my city,” Ellis, 70, said in an interview last week, citing his time as mayor and in the military and as a census worker. “So this is an opportunity to serve again. And the position was vacant. It doesn’t have an incumbent.”

The post has been filled on an interim basis since last September by Wade McCord, a two-decade tax office veteran who had risen through the ranks to become deputy tax commissioner. McCord, 47, is running against Ellis in the May 24 election.

The job’s base salary is $75,000.

Ellis, who describes himself as a semiretired consultant, says he aims to enhance customer service at the office and help the county combat blight.

Ellis said at his age “I’m not looking for a career as a tax commissioner … or a stepping stone to someplace else.”

He said the post is “a very powerful position” involving stewardship over an agency that could be involved and ought to be involved in redevelopment.

“My goal and my plan is to make sure that we tackle — we call it blight now, when I was in office we called it substandard housing or abandoned houses or abandoned lots — because the tax commissioner controls about 1,200 or 1,300 properties … owned by the people,” Ellis said.

“So therefore we want to make sure that we are not contributing to blight, that we want to eliminate blight by partnering with nonprofits, other developers, to get those properties” cleaned up and back on the tax rolls.

He also hopes to work with the county to collect some $7 million in late garbage fees.

Asked if his name recognition might serve him well at the polls, Ellis said he hoped so.

“Especially my core voters,” he said, “people who have voted for me consistently over the years. I hope that they will pay attention to what I have done, not just because of my name but because of what I have accomplished.”

He and McCord are running as Democrats.

“What I’m pleased about,” Ellis said, “even though Republicans are teaming up on me — they’ve never voted Democrat in their life and all of a sudden (they are), … as of last week we were the third-highest voting county in the state. … We have more participating.”

McCord said the other day that “as a first-time candidate, I’ve got every confidence.”

He noted how under his leadership the tax office has combined to a central location at Third and Walnut streets in downtown Macon and shrunk customer wait times by about 30 percent.

The office also recently unveiled a tag-renewal kiosk at a Macon supermarket so people “won’t have to take off work to renew” car tags, McCord said.

“We want to continue our great customer service,” he added, "and making our website more interactive.”

Asked why voters who might not otherwise know what a tax commissioner does should care about who is in the post, McCord mentioned the amount of tax money the office handles.

“We are the office that collects over $170 million a year, and we pay that money out on a weekly basis to what’s called the levying authorities — the board of education, the county and the state,” he said. “And that’s the money that pays our teachers, that pays our first responders, police, fire, things of that nature. It’s what keeps the county rolling.”

He said he likes helping taxpayers.

“We’ve got a ton of rules and regulations, state laws and local ordinances that we have to follow, and being there to help taxpayers through that maze, I thoroughly enjoy it,” McCord said.

“We educate as much as possible. We send out taxpayer brochures when people buy houses to let them know what we do.”

Said McCord: “I have 21 years in that office. … There’s a lot of knowledge that goes along with it that will be able to help taxpayers, that will help that office, that will make that office continue to operate at the level it is.”

This story was originally published May 14, 2016 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Bibb tax commissioner’s race pits ex-Mayor C. Jack Ellis and longtime tax office deputy."