Settle running for re-election as tax commissioner

Published 1:03 pm Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Cathy Settle has announced that she plans to seek re-election to her seventh four-year term as tax commissioner of Baldwin County.

She is one of the county’s four constitutionally-elected officers.

Settle said she didn’t have to contemplate whether she was going to seek another term because there are so many ongoing upgrades in her office to make things run more efficiently for her staff and the residents they serve in Milledgeville and Baldwin County. 

“I want to see these projects that are already underway completed,” Settle said, noting one of them includes DRIVES (Georgia Driver Record and Integrated Vehicle Enterprise System). “I would like to see DRIVES become successful because it will help set up Baldwin County for the future.” 

 On the property tax side of things, Settle said she also wants to see the changes underway completed.

Settle said it never crossed her mind not to seek re-election.

“I’ve got too much to do,” Settle said. “I’m kind of a perfectionist. I’m always working on a project; working on something that will help make this office run more smoothly and efficiently. This is my baby. And this was my baby before I had my two babies.”

 She shared a story about being in the hospital about a half-hour to an hour after the delivery of her first child.

“They brought the pay out to me, and I was in the delivery room signing payouts,” Settle said with a laugh. “It was something that had to be done, so I did it.”

Settle said when she left the hospital with her daughter, they didn’t immediately go home.

“We came here (to the office),” Settle said. “She didn’t even make it home first. And I never took a six-week maternity leave from work. When she was about a week old, she sat right here in the office with me in a car seat, while I worked. I laugh because she sat underneath a tree.”

She said she thought she did the same thing when her son was born.

Settle said she’s always loved her job as tax commissioner and even before when she worked in the office when her father served as tax commissioner.

Settle said she has always done her best to be answerable to the public about anything that relates to her office.

“I have people stop me in the store shopping and want to know something related to the tax office,” Settle said. “I always try to answer them, if I can, but if I can’t for some reason I’ll take their phone number and give them a follow-up call with the answer to their question when I get back into my office.”

Settle said when people see her out and about in the community, she doesn’t put aside her responsibility and duty to the public.

“I’m just Cathy,” she said. “I’m not Mrs. Settle. I’m not Commissioner Settle; I’m just Cathy. That’s just who I am. I can’t be anything else. That’s just me.”

Settle also said she doesn’t consider herself a politician and never has felt that way.

“I simply am who I am,” she said.

Settle is married to David Settle and the couple has two children, Caitlin, who is a senior at the University of Georgia in Athens; and a son, Colton, who is a sophomore at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. Both children graduated from Georgia Military College Prep School in Milledgeville.