County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

Q. How is your sister Paula doing following surgery?
A. Normally, this would not be a “question” subject, but several have asked. She had an 11 ½ hr. back surgery on Wednesday and as of today, Friday, she is recovering well at Emory Hospital and was able to sit up today with assistance. We appreciate the many prayers and concerns. She is my number one fan in the county and I am hers. How lucky I am to have such a wonderful, giving and loving sister.

Q. Why do the people living in the city of Blairsville not have to pay property tax when the rest of the county does? That is not fair.
A. The newspaper reported that the city was not going to charge any property tax this year which has been confusing to some people. The city property owners all pay county property tax just the same as does the rest of the county. However, in addition, most all cities also charge a property tax that is in addition to the county tax. The city residents normally pay these extra taxes to help fund fire, police, water and sewer, garbage pickup and street maintenance. However, this year, the city did not charge the extra tax.

Q. I spoke with two ladies this week who were on Social Security. They asked why it was necessary for the property taxes to go up so much. They were on a small fixed income and it was a real hardship for them. Their taxes were going up because their appraisal increased and that was because their neighbors had sold their property for such high prices. Is that fair?
A. No, I do not think it is fair. When people are on low fixed incomes who have been living here for many years and are having their property appraised for high values because of other property sales in the county, something should be done. I do not have the answer, but I do know it is not anything we can do at the county or local level. It will require state legislative action. The Tax Assessor’s office is simply complying with state regulations related to the property tax laws.

The state legislature appointed a study committee to work on this issue in last year’s session. The committee has held meetings all over the state during the past few months. I have not seen a report from this group, but I hope it will bring some new ideas to the table to be discussed this year in Atlanta.

Q. You lied to us about our taxes this year when you discussed the reappraisals. You are just another tax and spend politician. There is no excuse for our property taxes or our budget going up this much.
A. First, I did not lie to anyone about your taxes. It is very unfortunate that the school had a significant property tax increase and the county required a smaller increase; both the same year as the property reassessment. However, as I said earlier, the taxes would have gone up exactly the same amount with or without a new assessment. The new assessment only caused some shift in how much of the increase went to each tax payer.

The new assessment did have an impact on the tax mil rate. Without the reassessment, the county mill rate would have probably increased between 2 and 3 mils. However, with the reassessment, the mil rate was rolled back by the school from 9.22 to 8.95 and by the county from 6.65 to 5.1 mils.

I am definitely not a tax and spend politician. I consider myself very fiscally conservative. I have a finance background and pride my administration and employees with the high amount of service we offer to the taxpayers for the relatively small budget.

I have dealt extensively in the newspaper and at public hearings with the budget this year and all the reasons it increased. In summary, the cost of operating government is increasing drastically more than the cost of living. Fuel costs have increased over 100%. Asphalt has increased over 40%, gravel will increase another $1.50 per ton next month. We have to pay truckers and pavers higher prices just for them to break even. Jail medical cost and population are increasing rapidly and this is just a few of the many items that have increased this past year causing an increase in our required tax revenue of nearly 20%.

Q. Why should seniors have to pay school tax when we have no kids in school?
A. While I would like some relief for those who can not afford these taxes, if the retired population in Union County did not pay any school taxes, who do you think would pay them? The increased tax burden on the younger families would be tremendous.

It would be similar to the younger people asking why they have to pay in to Social Security when they will not be able to retire for 40 years. Or why they have to pay in to Medicare with their payroll taxes since they will not be eligible until they are 65 years old.

While there are a lot of issues that simply do not make sense, every time someone is given an exemption from property taxes, others must pick up the load. The more the burden is spread out, generally, the better for everyone.

Q. Is there anything that you know of that can be done to help us lower our property taxes?
A. I have written a letter to two legislators suggesting two areas that could assist county taxpayers. It would be to simply take a portion of our SPLOST sales tax receipts and dedicate it to operation of government and schools. For example, if county government took 1/3 of our SPLOST sales tax receipts and paid it for operation cost, we could reduce our mil rate accordingly. The same would go for the schools. The voters could vote on this when they voted on the SPLOST or ESPLOST. Currently, all SPLOST funds must be used for capital improvements only.

In addition, if the legislature would simplify the “impact fee” law, we could use those funds to directly reduce property taxes. It would be a simple matter to tie impact fees to a simple fee addition per home or business, based on square footage. However, current impact fee laws are very complicated. The funds must be utilized for increased services or infrastructure, all of which makes it impossible to utilize them for a direct property tax rollback amount. These are all issues for our state legislature.

Final word on property taxes. I have worked very hard to hold the county portion of property taxes as low as possible. I know the school has done the same thing. I regret very much the hardship this year’s property tax increase has caused many taxpayers. Over the next 6 months, my staff and volunteers are going to pore over details of every department of county government. We are going to compare our budgets with other counties not only in our region, but throughout the state. We will compare per capita expenditures and actual expenditures to make sure that we are not only getting the production we should out of our employees, but to make sure you are getting the service you deserve at a cost that is reasonable. We want to be sure we are not wasting any taxpayer’s money and that the services we are providing the taxpayers are reasonable and needed.

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