Walker County Commissioner Bebe Heiskell
After a three-month deadlock on how to share Walker County’s $54 million sales tax revenue, several city leaders reached an agreement Monday night.
The North Georgia cities of Rossville and Lookout Mountain agreed the county should consider a split of 30 percent of the local option sales tax revenue to share among the municipalities and leave the county with 70 percent of the funds. And LaFayette officials were coming around to the agreement.
But Sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell brought negotiations to a halt when she said she wouldn’t budge on a 75/25 split, reasoning all county taxpayers would have to pay more if she had to raise taxes to make up for the lost funds.
Deadline Wednesday
As the 90-day negotiation period on the 1 percent local option sales tax comes to an end Wednesday, city and county officials will now have to sit down with a mediator to try to come to an agreement before the decision on how to split the sales tax lands in front of a judge.