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By NOAH WORTHAM | Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – With his hand on top of the same Bible Don Armstrong was sworn in on, in addition to his own, Jacob Tidmore repeated the oath of office as he was sworn in as Shelby County’s new property tax commissioner.

Tidmore was surrounded by his own family and the loved ones of Armstrong as he was sworn in by Shelby County attorney Butch Ellis on Monday, March 24 at the Shelby County Administration building.

“I’m very excited,” Tidmore said. “I’ve had great leadership from Mr. Armstrong, he’s been a great mentor for me. I’ve worked at the county for about eight years leading up to this role. I’m just really excited to move into the future and see what we can get accomplished.”

Tidmore was appointed by Gov. Kay Ivey as Shelby County’s new tax commissioner after the death of Armstrong in March who had served in the position for nearly 20 years.

“It’s a little scary, obviously, but I feel he prepared me and has given me the tools to take over from here,” Tidmore said. “He’s been a great mentor for me and has taught me the ropes in everything—not only in property tax—but in just how to be a good person and serve with integrity and transparency for Shelby County.”

Tidmore is a graduate of Shelby County High School and has a Bachelor of Science from the University of South Alabama. Having worked for Shelby County for approximately eight years, Tidmore previously served as a real property tax appraiser and tax administrator before being appointed to his new role.

The role of property tax commissioner handles the duties of both a tax assessor and tax collector and was the brainchild of Armstrong who sought a way to save the county money by combining the two positions.

“I’m in charge of the assessment, appraisal and collection of all property tax in Shelby County,” Tidmore said. “That includes appraising every piece of real property in the county and business personal property accounts in the county and assessing those and collecting as well. And then we disburse to the schools, county and state road and bridge funds, municipalities and general funds.”

As he takes on this new role, Tidmore shared that his one major goal is to increase transparency for taxpayers in Shelby County.

“The good thing about local taxes is, if they come in my office, I can tell them exactly where their tax dollar is going,” Tidmore said. “I just want to build on that, on the transparency for the taxpayer themselves.”

Currently, residents can visit Ptc.shelbyal.com to perform real property searches and business personal property searches as well as pay their property taxes online.

“We implemented a new public website where they can actually go on and see the comps we use, see the sales in their neighborhoods and all of that to show where our values come from,” Tidmore said. “We have a lot of data and a lot of analytics that go into our values and sharing that with the public I think is a big step forward.”