Politics & Government

Ott Won't Vote to Raise Property Taxes

Birrell, Lee haven't stated views with tonight's commission vote looming.

For most of the last two decades, the third rail in Cobb County politics has been the millage rate. 

Touch it with the intention of increasing property taxes even in the slightest and political death very well might result. 

Few office holders, at least on the Cobb Board of Commissioners, have been curious enough to test that theory. 

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They haven't had to, given Cobb's growing tax coffers that have resulted in gradually reduced millage rates since 1996 (see table below).

But interestingly, with a proposed millage rate increase up for a vote tonight, only East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott has taken a vow to maintain the status quo. 

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That's not surprising, because he's been fairly consistent about that position during the last year as the commission sliced $51 million from the budget to address declining tax revenues.

His four other colleagues, including chairman Tim Lee, who suggested the millage hike, and Ott's fellow East Cobb representative, rookie JoAnn Birrell, aren't saying how they might vote. 

Even North Cobb commissioner Helen Goreham, who suggested a tax hike was necessary in May after the commission balanced the budget by slashing county spending by 10 percent and issuing furloughs, has been mum recently. 

With $33 million more in deficits projected for fiscal year 2012, these commissioners are in a political spot their predecessors could not imagine. 

Like all five commissioners, Birrell is a low-tax Republican who vowed during her campaign to succeed Lee last year that she wanted to keep one metro Atlanta's lowest millage rate that way. 

But she was worried enough about the effects of budget cuts on public safety services to hold a town hall meeting on the subject last month.

And last week, she sent out a constituent e-mail on the proposed millage rate increase. 

In the county's "budget book" that lays out the FY 2012 fiscal picture, a graphic illustrates how tax-conscious previous commissions have been, and why Cobb remains a low-tax haven. While other local governments were raising their millage rates before the recession, Cobb was steadily reducing the property tax obligations of citizens, and has been for 17 years:

1996    1997   1998   1999   2000   2001-2005   2006-Present 10.77   10.62   10.12    9.97    9.84       9.72        9.60

Lee's proposal would push the millage rate by 17 percent, or 1.71 mills, costing a typical Cobb homeowner an average additional $111 a year for a home valued at $200,000.

As Lee told members of the East Cobb Civic Association last month, these are "uncharted waters" for the county. 

With Lee, Ott and Birrell all up for re-election in 2012, and with another painful budget year underway as they campaign, they're perilously close to a third rail they would rather not go near.


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