DALTON, Ga. – Tough times and difficult decisions are ahead for Whitfield County Board of Commissioners and residents.
After steady or even lower property tax rates for the last decade and lower sale tax revenue, county commissioners will have to decide whether to raise taxes, implement furloughs or further cut expenditures.
“The most important decision for the taxpayers is what did the commissioners do with the millage rate because if the millage rate goes up, of course they are going to pay more taxes,” said Commission Chairman Mike Babb, after Monday’s meeting.
“I think I can assure you it’s not going to go down because devaluations have already gone down. Even with same millage rate as last year, the county is going to collect less money because of devaluations in properties across the community,” he said.
The county has been losing about $5 million per year since 2008, Ron Hale, the county’s finance director said, because of drops in the sales and property taxes, which are about 85 percent of the county’s budget.
The bottom line to the commissioners, he said, is that despite a hiring freeze and other cutbacks, the county continues to spend as much with a lot less revenue coming in.
“We’ve [had] a deficit budget the last two, three years, deliberately spending in a deficit fashion in trying to keep the impact to county services at the lowest level possible while reacting to the downturn,” he said.
“Our budget is so lean that there’s no fat there to cut. It’s which arm, which leg, do you want to cut?” he said.
The commissioners will discuss this week whether the millage rate, currently at 5.061 – the same since 2008 and lower than 2006 – will have to go up. Babb said hehopes they can advertise a proposal to vote on it by the beginning of October.
On Monday the Clerk of Court and the Public Defender’s Office, were the first of about 30 departments to present to the commissioners an itemized budget for 2011.
They are looking for ways to save before raising taxes, said Hale, like $15,000 for supplies cut for the Clerk of Court.
In other measures, commissioners approved a resolution to advertise a public hearing to discuss the closure of Cronan Drive, which the county owns a portion of it.
They also approved the purchase of a $14,600 X-ray scanner for the courthouse, paid for with stimulus money.
Contact Perla Trevizo at ptrevizo@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6578. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/Perla_Trevizo.