Gwinnett Board of Commissioners seeks property tax increase

[Specialops]

Lawrenceville, Ga., (November 13, 2009) – The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners today announced its intention to raise the property tax rate by 2.28 mills, which includes an increase of 2.06 mills for countywide general purposes, .21 mills for countywide recreation and .01 mills for debt service. This is an 18.4 percent increase over the rollback rate; broken down, it increases by 18.89 percent for countywide general purposes and goes up by 24.22 percent for countywide recreation.

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that a rollback millage rate be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The increase in county property tax would restore some of the spending reductions made earlier this year. “We understand the importance of the services provided by our elected and constitutional officials – including the District Attorney and the courts,” said County Administrator Glenn Stephens. “The plan will also restore funding in the area of public safety, which is critical to the health and welfare of our residents.” Additional appropriations are proposed in the areas of parks and recreation and social service programs. The millage rate increase does not provide any additional resources for the County’s internal support functions, which eliminated $6.8 million from their budgets earlier this year. More importantly, it does not fund the 2030 Unified Plan, which was approved, pursuant to state law, by the Board of Commissioners in February of this year after several years’ worth of visioning and work by citizens of Gwinnett County. The plan has as its stated purpose to guide and enhance Gwinnett County’s growth, public safety functions, overall quality of life and economic development as we move quickly toward 2030.

The Board of Commissioners has been able to roll back the property tax rate by a total of 3.98 mills over the past 12 years. The rollbacks were made possible in part because the county’s rapid growth generated sufficient tax revenues to cover the cost of expanding service needs. In recent years, however, the county’s growth rate has begun to slow.

The millage increase to be decided on Dec. 1 applies only to the county government’s portion of the property tax bill, which is slightly less than one-third of the total amount of a property owner’s tax bill. The proposed increase does not affect the remaining portions of Gwinnett tax bills that fund the Gwinnett County Public Schools, state taxes as well as city taxes if you live within one of the county’s 15 municipalities that have an ad valorem property tax.

Before the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners may set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase. All interested citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase that will be held at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center, 75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville, Ga., on Nov. 23 at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and on Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. Each of these public hearings will be held during a special called meeting of the Board of Commissioners. The public hearing on Dec. 1 will be followed by a vote.

Details about what would be funded by the proposal – and what would not be funded – are available online atwww.gwinnettcounty.com.
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" A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul " - George Bernard Shaw

[woodswalker]

in a more perfect world, i wish the BOC would announce a tax decrease, and show us how much it would help the working class.

right now, apparently they (BOC) need more money to distribute for votes?

i hope the county can learn to survive with less rather than more, like us commoners who support the gov't services with our taxes, derived from the end of a gun-barrel.

don't believe it?, then read-up.

[StreetSamurai]

Well that new arena they built isn't going to pay for itself... oh, wait...

Being a government employee, I understand the need for more funds. But as a taxpayer in Gwinnett it's hard to justify a tax increase when I see money being mishandled by the same people asking for it.

If I ran a business and had the Gwinnett BoC handling my money I would've fired them a long time ago.
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[Y]ou are outrageous. -Duluthman_drew

The opinions expressed by me are not that of my employing agency.

[Specialops]

[woodswalker]

well, a whole lot of the problem is that political entities attempt to run their geographic area as a fiefdom. a place to control, and paid for by ever increasing taxes on the working class.

seems like the best way to win friends and capture votes is to hold the status quo. it'd be asking way to much for gov't to down-size and actually reduce taxes.

wonder if the state and county will reconfigure the millage rates, as an adjustment to the fall-off in average home and commercial real estate values?? but first, that would require a re-assessment of values wouldn't it?? how much would that cost, and how long would it take, i wonder?

[woodswalker]

can anyone imagine a county that reduces instead of increases taxes?? it is hard to imagine, for certain. but, it is possible, with the right kind of ldrshp.

it would be a major effort toward forward progress. now, who are the county commissioners that might believe that, versus a tax increase on the working class, who are barely holding on to their homes??

when we start losing our homes to increased taxes, there won't be enough uniformed troops in the county to make a difference.

we need ldrshp., who'se got it??