Cooper: Fixing Walker's 'inheritance'

Walker County Commissioner Shannon Whitfield speaks to citizens on a proposed tax increase at the Walker County/LaFayette Public Library.
Walker County Commissioner Shannon Whitfield speaks to citizens on a proposed tax increase at the Walker County/LaFayette Public Library.

Chances are, Walker County Commissioner Shannon Whitfield is still listening. If anyone has a better solution for the North Georgia county's bright red ledger sheet, he's likely to be all ears.

In the meantime, he's the guy in charge, and he's got to do something about the debt of $69.9 million an audit showed the county had. In public hearings, what he's saying is the county is $7 million in the red. As in right now.

So, Whitfield has proposed a cure of several bitter pills - increased taxes. He has suggested the county portion of property taxes be raised by about 22 percent. An additional 0.14 property tax would be assessed until the end of 2019 to pay Erlanger Health System what is estimated to be $10 million (the $8.7 million a federal judge says the county owes for a 2011 loan, plus interest).

In addition, the county's public safety fee will be recalculated from a flat $130 to separate fee structures for homes, businesses and industrial plants. Now, the fee will be 10 cents per square foot, with homeowners paying a minimum of $90 and a maximum of $400, businesses paying a minimum of $400 and a maximum of $3,000, and industrial plants paying a minimum of $1,500 and a maximum of $15,000.

Further, Whitfield will be asking residents to vote on Nov. 7 on an extra 1 percent Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST). The money from that tax would fund only transportation projects.

For homeowners in the incorporated parts of the county, the property tax levy on a $100,000 home would be increased by about $223; for unincorporated parts, the levy on the same home would be increased by $216.

The take from the public safety fee would give the county an extra $75,000, and the T-SPLOST revenue would be about $3 million, $2.5 million of which would go to the county and $500,000 to municipalities.

The county's budget is not due until Oct. 1, so - other than the Erlanger money - how the money will be spent is not delineated. But Whitfield, in a meeting Thursday night, invited the public to hold his administration accountable.

That was the problem in the previous administration, that of sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell. Spending and debt got out of hand. So the first-year commissioner now must deal with what he called "our inheritance" and the "crack cocaine of government debt."

We're never for raising taxes to solve problems, but Walker's in a bind. Whitfield, though, seems to have come up with a variety of options that will spread around the misery fairly. The Erlanger tax would go away in 2019, and the T-SPLOST always must be renewed by voters, so they'll have a stake in what happens.

But lacking those ideas, Whitfield is still likely entertaining options if you've got any.

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