After more than 16 years as James City County’s treasurer, Ann Davis is saying goodbye, getting married and heading to Ashland to enjoy her retirement.
The James City County native and College of William & Mary graduate was appointed to the job in September 1998, but has gone on to win four subsequent elections, all while managing the books for the county and the other entities that turn to the county for treasurer services. These include the local schools, the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail and the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority.
But now Davis is ready to hand the reins to Jennifer Tomes, an interim replacement who will serve until the election next year.
Davis is set to get married in January, after which she and her new husband will embark on a journey of merging families and households in the town of Ashland, located in Hanover County about 15 miles north of Richmond.
Then she will decide what comes next.
“I can’t imagine sitting and not doing something,” she said, suggesting volunteering as an activity she may look to once she is settled in her new home. She also has eight grandchildren to keep her occupied.
She leaves behind a treasurer’s office far different from the one she received when then Circuit Court Judge Samuel Powell appointed her treasurer in 1998. Back then, the treasurer’s office did not accept credit or debit cards, nor was there an online method for citizens to pay taxes — two changes she implemented during her time in office.
“The law gives me very little latitude [to change policies and procedures governing the function of the office], so I’ve implemented customer service policies,” she said.
After noticing a high percentage of homeowners who have paid off their mortgages, she got the idea to start an Easy Pay system, where they can go to sign up to have their tax payments debited from their accounts on a monthly or quarterly basis rather than having to deal with a large tax bill twice a year.
“Some people like having it budgeted each month, so it doesn’t hit so hard,” she said.
Since that program was created, it has attracted more than 800 participants.
She also began a partnership with C&F Bank, opening the doors of the bank to citizens who want to drop off their tax payments at the closest bank branch rather than having to make the journey to the County Government Complex off Mounts Bay Road.
For Davis, the treasurer’s office was the final stop in a career built on numbers. She started her career at H&R Block working with tax returns.
“I just liked it, and I was good at it,” she said. “Working with numbers came naturally.”
She progressed to a lumber company, where she handled the tax returns and provided accountant services. Then came the decision to go to school at William & Mary, which gave her the credentials she needed to land a job as an auditor with the Virginia Department of Taxation.
There she spent 11 years as an auditor, working with large companies that do business in Virginia. She traveled to nearly every state in the country before spending her last two years there working to implement a new computer system, a project that helped whet her appetite for technology like the customer service upgrades she brought to the treasurer’s office.
But when the chance came to leave Richmond — a place where there is “a lot of concrete” — and return to her “beautiful” childhood home of James City County, she took it. Shortly thereafter she was appointed treasurer.
The interim treasurer, Jennifer Tomes, is a lifelong resident of James City County who has held several positions in the office, where she has served as assistant treasurer since 2012. She plans to run for the position in next year’s election.
