I'm interested in making sure that each album created has a least one tag assigned to it before it can be saved. I've scoured the settings and plugins and didn't see anything. Should this be address via code in the admin-edit.php file?

You need to create a plugin using a filter to assign a tag on album creation. See here: https://www.zenphoto.org/news/zenphoto-plugin-architecture/

You also would need use the object model:
https://www.zenphoto.org/news/zenphotos-object-model-framework/