Millage Rates & Taxes

Gwinnett Commission Uses 2009 Tax Hike to Balance 2010 Budget

In December 2009, the GDP reported on the county’s plan to use the 2009 tax increase for unfunded liabilities rather than to pay for the fire stations, police officers and youth athletics as had been promised. Gwinnett Finance Director Aaron Bovos had told the Engage Gwinnett committee of the plan just days after the Commission voted to hike the tax rate.

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Stuck Inside the Box: My Dissent to the Engage Gwinnett Report

The 94-page final report of the Engage Gwinnett committee is now online. It details the findings and recommendations of the citizen committee (of which I was a member) that examined Gwinnett County’s finances for over six months.

Despite our herculean efforts, I believe that our work product has serious deficiencies. In a nutshell, we nitpicked county departments while missing the bigger picture. We strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. We didn’t see the forest for the trees. You get the point. Read more…

Kudos to Reed for Addressing Pension Benefits

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is to be commended for taking one of the bold steps needed to keep the city from falling into the abyss, financially speaking.

Accrued but unfunded liabilities, primarily pension benefits, are the figurative cement shoes on the feet of cities, counties and states across the nation. Basically, accrued and unfunded liabilities are the retirement benefits that have been promised to government employees, but for which money has not been set aside to pay them. In Gwinnett, accrued liabilities exceed $300 million.

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Lower Property Value, But Maybe No Lower Tax Bill

The AJC reports that Gwinnett County has adjusted the assessed value of tens of thousands of residential properties downward:

The vast majority of the 120,000 residential property notices issued in the first batch will show an average value decrease of 17 percent or $35,000 of market value, Pruitt said. The sum of all decreases for residential property totals approximately $4.2 billion of market value.

As I explained in “Tax Digest Time Bomb,” the lower tax value may not necessarily translate into a lower tax bill. In fact, as a result of the 2009 tax increase that is being continued for 2010, you will probably pay a lot more than in previous years.

Gwinnett property owners may get good news  | ajc.com

More Budget Shenanigans in Gwinnett

The budget that the County Commission is poised to approve on Tuesday is not the same budget about which the county held public hearings last year. It also appears that Chairman Charles Bannister plans to exact a little political payback on a fellow Commissioner, but it will be the residents of Commission District 3 who will suffer.

Budget `Bait and Switch`

Bannister presented his 2010 budget to the other Commissioners and to the public on December 1, as required by law. The law is designed to give the public ample opportunity to review the document prior to its adoption. The required public hearings were also held. Read more…

Sounds Like Gwinnett: California Built Its House on the Sand

Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation is criticizing a report on the money woes of ten states by the Pew Center. His assessment of California’s problems could apply, in principle, to Gwinnett’s situation:

A big cause of California’s budget crisis was spending commitments derived from overreliance on volatile revenue sources, particularly taxes on high-income earners, corporate profits, and capital gains revenue. These revenue sources soared during the boom, and legislators made spending commitments as if that soaring would never end. It did, and that’s where the budget hole came from…

Here, county leaders banked primarily on two revenue sources to fuel growth in government—property taxes on both commercial and residential development; and the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) to build infrastructure.

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