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.