Alamance County’s governing board has selected Bradley Fowler, the current second-in-command to Mecklenburg County’s tax administrator, to serve as the new head of Alamance Count’s tax office.
The county’s board of commissioners formally voted 4-to-1 on Monday to install Fowler as the county’s new tax administrator – which is one of four staff level posts that are directly appointed by the commissioners.
According to Alamance County’s manager Heidi York, Fowler will bring a wealth of expertise and experience to this staff-level position.
“Mr. Fowler has twenty years of experience in tax administration that includes managing a staff of sixty-five employees; serving as an assistant assessor; serving as a previous tax administrator; serving as a real property manager; and working as a tax appraiser,” York went on to explain in a news release on Monday evening. “He comes to Alamance County from Mecklenburg County where he has served as the [deputy tax administrator] since 2021. Prior to that, he was the tax administrator for Catawba County and previously worked in Durham County and Davidson County.”
The post that Fowler secured on Monday was previously held by Jeremy Akins, who served as Alamance County’s tax administrator for the better part of a decade before his abrupt resignation in August.
Although Akins offered no explanation for his departure, the move coincided with the dismissal of two lower ranking staff members, who had allegedly jimmied with the county’s assessed property values to secure property tax discounts for themselves or their family members.
In the wake of Akins’ departure, the commissioners tapped tax office staff member Cindy Miller to serve as the county’s interim tax collector. In the meantime, they deputized Amiee Perkins, another long-time tax office employee, to take over as the county’s interim tax assessor. These two functions, which are both stipulated in the state statues, had previously been rolled into the tax administrator’s position, and they were formally reabsorbed into that post when it was assigned to Fowler on Monday.
Akins’ resignation last summer came in the midst of some sweeping changes to the way that the tax office approaches the state-mandated mass reassessments that it has historically conducted once every eight years.
At Akins behest, the board of commissioners had agreed to shift to a four-year revaluation cycle in order to ensure the county’s assessed property values don’t get too far out of line with the real estate market. As an interim measure, the commissioners allowed a six-year gap to proceed before the latest reval in 2023. In the meantime, Akins had been begun to move forward with the preparations for the county’s first four-year revaluation, which is still scheduled to take place in 2027.
Shortly before his departure, Akins had approached the commissioners to request that they outsource the entirety of the next reassessment to Vincent Valuation – a company that had handled some of the county’s commercial reappraisals in 2023. The commissioners initially balked at the $2.6 million price tag for this contract – a sum that amounts to about twice what the county had spent in its latest, partially-out sourced revaluation. The board nevertheless approved the proposed contact with Vincent after the county’s administrators reiterated Akins proposal shortly after his resignation.
Among Fowler’s duties as tax administrator will be to oversee Vincent’s work on the upcoming revaluation. Fowler will also supervise the collection of property taxes for Alamance County, the county’s rural fire districts, and municipalities that outsource this function to the county’s tax office. He will, moreover, be tasked with property reassessments that occur between revals – usually as a result of new construction and other improvements to real property.
Prior to his appointment on Monday, Fowler briefly addressed the commissioners about the prospect of taking over Alamance County’s tax office.
“I’m super excited to work not only with this board but with the county management,” he declared at the time. “They’ve been so accommodating in bringing me up to speed – and the staff has been very welcoming.”
Meanwhile, Fowler’s imminent arrival in Alamance County has come as an acknowledged relief to John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners.
“We really look forward to working with you,” Paisley assured the county’s incoming tax administrator before Monday’s vote. “I had a much better Easter because you said ‘yes’ [to the board’s job offer].”
In the end, commissioner Pam Thompson cast the lone vote of dissent against Fowler’s appointment. In a subsequent interview, Thompson told The Alamance News that her opposition should not be construed as a vote of no confidence against the county’s new tax administrator.
“It was nothing having to with his qualification,” the commissioner stressed. “It was about the salary.”
York has since told The Alamance News that Fowler will begin his tenure in Alamance County with an annual salary of $175,000. As a point of comparison, Akins left the county’s employ on August 9 with a final salary of $104,286.15.
