What are your expectations for South Fulton County? The housing market has slowed and growth has slowed. New schools are in the works. Are there any new parks in the works to help relieve the overcrowded parks? Work is underway to get the youth crime under control.
Rep. Roger Bruce has dropped a bill that will allow unincorporated South Fulton to keep its Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) contributions. That could put another $10.5 - $12 million in South Fulton budget. Otherwise, the money benefits the rest of Fulton County through the General Funds budget.
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I know in College Park, there is going to be a new recreation center on Godby Road, just east of Old National Hwy. It should be opened by the end of this year, the end of '08.
I don't think Roger Bruce has yet to get any legislation he has authored passed in his tenure in the state legislature.
I don't see us getting those LOST dollars with the current climate and micromanagement of the county structure by the state legislature.
We do however benefit from the continued practice of paying for Public Works Roads out of the general fund. We'll get $7.6 million in road construction and other Public Works efforts in unincorporated Fulton, paid by taxpayers countywide:
Fulton tax under attack
Budget tiff: Only southern part of county will benefit from public works millions.
By D.L. Bennett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/01/08
Fewer than 5 percent of Fulton County residents live outside one of the county's 14 cities.
Still, all county homeowners are being taxed to pay for road work inside the small island of unincorporated south Fulton.
This year the proposed 2008 budget sets aside $7.6 million for public works. All the money is programmed to be spent inside an area that holds 45,000 people in a county estimated at more than 980,000.
It's a policy that's a political holdover from when the county was largely unincorporated —- and a policy due to be challenged in 2008.
"It's just wrong," said Roswell Mayor Jere Wood. "It's a city service at this point. I expect you will have all the north Fulton mayors objecting to this."
The general fund budget comes from taxes collected countywide and pays for services that are supposed to benefit all county residents. A separate account pays for municipal services in south Fulton such as police, fire and planning.
Wood has argued for years that public works spending by Fulton needed to be paid only by unincorporated residents since city residents already pay the cities for those services.
For the last decade, Fulton has defended public works money in the general fund by saying everyone in the county benefits from road work, storm sewer fixes and other projects. That policy, though, was adopted long before all of north Fulton and most of south Fulton incorporated.
Four new cities have formed over the past two years.
County Manager Tom Andrews said the county's original position still stands even if the unincorporated area has been dramatically cut and continues to shrink through annexation.
Commission chairman John Eaves, who helped draft the budget, initially gave a similar explanation. When pressed on how that logic still holds today, he would only say, "Next question."
Commissioner Lynne Riley, who represents north Fulton, said she would fight the proposed budget on behalf of north Fulton residents who shouldn't be paying taxes to pave roads on which they will never ride.
"I have great concerns," Riley said.
If the cost for public works gets moved out of the general fund, some would save and others would pay.
North Fulton residents and south Fulton residents who live inside city limits would be free from paying $7.6 million for work many likely will not benefit from.
But the already burdened south Fulton tax district would be even further in the red. Eaves' budget proposal already shows the south Fulton tax district with a gap of $11.6 million.
The budget predicts $36 million in revenue and $47.6 million in spending. The gap is made up through transfers from savings and other funds.
So in other words we don’t receive the LOST dollars that the cities get, but we do receive $11 million in Public Works and Police that the cities don’t get. It's a wash, $11 million and $11 million (give or take a few dollars). And of course AJC forgot to mention that little fact in their article.
As far as the bill goes, there are already legislators saying they would only support it if there's a stipulation that South Fulton wouldn't receive any money from the General Fund for Public Works and Police. If that's the case, it would still be a wash.
It won't be a wash if they deny us the LOST dollars and prohibit Police and Fire funds coming from the general fund to SSD.
We really should be getting that money from the gernal fund and Roger's attempt to get LOST dollars might result in an $11 Million deficit.
Our Bonehead State Representative strikes again.....
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