County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

I just returned from a two-day, Association of County Commissioners (ACCG) legislative conference in Atlanta.  By being a member of the ACCG Board of Managers as well as being on the Executive Board, I have unparalleled access to our association lobbyists in being kept up to date on not only what is transpiring with certain legislation, but also having direct input into what changes we are trying to negotiate to make bills more favorable to the operation of the counties.

As a result of my position as Third Vice President of ACCG, I was also honored to sit beside Governor Sonny Perdue at a luncheon held by ACCG on Tuesday, February 12th. Also seated at our table were the new Department of Transportation Commissioner (GDOT), Dr. Gena Abraham, and 9th District board member and recently reelected Chairman of the GDOT Board, Mr. Mike Evans. The Governor and Dr. Abraham both made addresses to ACCG regarding the future of our state and our GDOT.   The following questions are written by me regarding their comments at our meeting. 

Q.  What did Governor Perdue say about the state of the Georgia economy?
A. He admitted that our state is currently in a recession that he feels will be short lived. He also pointed out all of the strong employment numbers and new manufacturing plants in our state making us the 4th strongest state in the Union regarding economic development. He was very optimistic about the future.

Q. Did the Governor talk about the water shortage?
A. Yes and he assured us that his easing up on water restrictions on swimming pools and landscaping should not present a serious impact on our water shortage.  The state will continue to monitor the situation closely and should additional measures need to be taken, they will be ready.  However, he did not feel that the blunt of the restrictions should remain on landscapers and nurseries, as they provide such a valuable service to our state and are an important economic engine for our economy.

Q. What are the results of new property tax legislation?   
A. Several new property tax bills have been submitted by the Senate and House and while down in Atlanta, the ACCG Board voted to support two particular bills for their basic theories and will work to improve them.  The Governor is supporting the first one (HR 1120) which will eliminate the ¼ mil portion of property tax that goes to the State of Georgia. On average, this will only save each taxpayer $15 to $30, however, this is by far the most important of all of the bills.  The Georgia Department of Revenue has always forced counties to reassess property values on a regular basis by fining and penalizing the counties if we do not keep our values up to the state required levels of 40%.  The reason they give us for doing this is that the state is losing money on their ¼ mil property tax collections when counties have the property reassessed too low.

By eliminating this provision of the tax code, the state will no longer be able to force counties to reassess property by fining and penalizing us.  We are very excited about this potential legislation and feel it has an excellent chance of passing.

Q. Is their any legislation related to property assessment?
A.  Yes. A companion  bill (SB 796) to HR 1120 is a bill to freeze property tax assessments at their current 2008 levels and allow homestead property values to increase a maximum of 2% per year and other property to increase a maximum of 3% per year.  The basic percentages may change, but this will make a huge impact for future property tax increases.   In other words, as long as you own your home, your property value can not increase more than a certain small percentage per year.  Over several years this could provide a significant tax savings to the homeowner.  Once a property was sold, it would be reappraised at the market value.  So as long as you own your own home, the value will remain basically the same.  This is something that I am very excited about. It is similar to legislation we were working on with Rep. Charles Jenkins last year and decided to wait to see what the legislature was going to do this year. This bill not only protects homestead property but any property, whether you live here full time or not.  While this does not eliminate future tax increases, it certainly should drastically reduce the impact.

Q.  Are there other property tax bills being presented?
A.  Yes, there will be many from both the House and the Senate and at this point we have no way to know what the final bills will look like or which ones will pass.  However, most any changes should be positive for the property owners of Georgia and for counties.

Q. Did the new GDOT Commissioner, Dr. Abraham, have good things to say about state transportation?
A. She shared both good and bad news.  The bad is that there are a lot of organizational issues that she feels must be changed for the future of GDOT.  Further, a lot of projects previously approved by the state in many counties will not have adequate funding to build.  On the positive side, with hopefully new state funding alternatives from the legislature this year, she wants to immediately make significant progress in dealing with Atlanta congestion, since it is impacting the entire state’s economic development efforts. With the help of Chairman Evans, she will do an excellent job. While she has already been to Union County and met with us, it was the first chance for most Commissioners to meet and hear her.   I think all county commissioners were pleased with her talk and gave her a standing ovation.

Q.  Will the GDOT funding reductions impact Union County?
A.  Fortunately, other than our normal winter gravel contract delay, I do not think Union County will be adversely affected now by state funding shortfalls.  In fact, I just received a call last week granting Union County and the City of Blairsville an additional $100,000 in our LARP funding for resurfacing roads.  This will allow us to extend our resurfacing contract by well over a mile.  This is money the county is not required to match.

Q. Will the county be hurt by State Aid and county contracts from GDOT?
A. No. Because our SPLOST recently passed, we will have adequate funding to match GDOT grants well into the future. We will continue to be on a very aggressive road paving and widening program.

Lamar Paris, Commissioner - Questions or comments contact: unioncounty@uniongov.com, call 706-439-6000 or write 114 Courthouse St., Blairsville, GA 30512

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