By RAY LIGHTNER
Journal Staff Writer
County taxpayers will be paying a little more in taxes when the tax bill comes.
How much is a little? $3 more for a $100,000 house and $7 more for a $200,000 home. Commission Chairman Ned Sanders said the “slight, marginal increase” in the millage rate to 9.45 mills is up 1.39 percent from last year’s rate of 9.32 mills and 1.6 percent above the rollback rate of 9.3 mills.
The Houston County Commissioners set the millage rate Tuesday following the third public hearing on the tax rate increase. The final hearing was also the most attended, with six members of the public and four members of the media on hand.
Four of the residents also took the opportunity to speak out against the tax increase.
“It’s just $3. It’s just $6,” said Walton Wood, “It is just a tax increase.”
Maurice Braswell said, “it seems the county responsibility has decreased through annexation, but you keep asking for more and more. We have to accept increases in taxes, and tax assessments and fuel costs, which you say you can’t do anything about.”
Braswell was also critical of new equipment purchases versus, he said, other counties which buy used.
David Wittenberg said “people in the county try to make ends meet and sometimes have to make priorities,” telling the commissioners, “it doesn’t seem you have to prioritize in the county.”
Wittenberg referred to the increased tax digest, which Commission Chairman Ned Sanders said has grown $1.3 billion or 59 percent from five years ago. “The county is getting a 9 percent pay raise every year and you are spending every bit and asking for more,” he said. “I’m not getting any more services for my increased taxes than before. If I am I don’t see it.”
The three, Wood, Braswell and Wittenberg, were also critical of the pay increase for development Authority Executive Director Morgan Law since the Perry speculative building still remains empty and questioned tax abatements given to attract industry. The benefit to the tax digest from Houston American Cement with the abatement, Wittenberg claimed, “ain’t gonna be snot.”
The general consensus of the three was: “our tax dollars are not being well spent.”
Bob Kilburn of Hayneville, who unlike the others was a first-time participant in the public comments portion of a county commission meeting, said he is “not getting a good return on my tax dollar.”
Kilburn asked for impact fees. “Somebody needs to support infrastructure needs now,” he said, “The developers are making big money. They need to be paying impact fees,” he said. “We need to be relieved of some of the tax burden.”
He said the tax increases, “if anything may chase me of Houston County.”
He was also concerned about the increased crime, the home invasions and shootings, in Warner Robins, Bonaire and Perry and even the theft of a neighbor’s ATV in Hayneville. He said he moved “to the sticks” to “get away from the crime.”
Sanders said Houston County’s millage rate has been in the bottom of third of the 159 counties in Georgia, while the county’s population is 14th highest in the state. In Middle Georgia, Sanders said only two other counties, Bleckley and Pulaski, are near Houston in millage rate, with the others at 30 mills.
Houston County’s total millage rate, including the Board of Education millage of 12.47 is 22.17 mills. “Only Bleckley County is lower,” Sanders said, and Houston has been the lowest in middle Georgia four of past seven years.
The total net increase, with the county raising its millage rate 0.13 mills and the school board reducing its rate 0.03 mills from 12.5 to 12.47 mills, is a 10th of a mill, which Sanders said, equals $3.
Residents in the unincorporated areas of Houston County will also see a reduction in the county fire tax millage rate from 1.19 mills to 1.18 mills. The total millage rate in the county including the fire tax will be 23.35 mills.
All the tax bills also include a quarter of a mill that goes to state to pay for tax collection and administration.
Sanders said the county portion of the taxes is about 42.63 percent of the total tax bill, with school board getting the largest portion at 56.25 percent and the state getting 1.11 percent. He explained the other 100th of a percent is lost in the rounding of the figures.
Sanders said the budget of $47,520,363, up $4.2 million from the FY2007 amended budget of $45,616,174, includes no new positions or reclassifications and a 2.5 percent cost of living allowance for all county employees.
“There is a smaller capital budget than last year,” Sanders said, which included renovations to the County Annex, $500,000 for a new, much needed county warehouse, $150,000 each for improvements to White Road and the extension of Osigian Boulevard to U.S. 41, as well as $287,000 devoted to address drainage problems.
“We try to arrive at the lowest responsible budget to allow departments to carry out their duties per state law.”
