CARLTON FLETCHER: County will have a tough time justifying huge tax increase

You’re struggling financially, maybe had an unexpected expense that you had to take care of, so you know money’s going to be tight for a while. What do you do?

Most of us do a little belt-tightening, cut back on unnecessary expenses and ride out the tough times until we’re able to turn things around.

The Dougherty County Commission? They react to hard economic times by tightening our belts and spending our money like the proverbial drunken sailor.

The commission is going to hold three meetings next week to discuss its plans to raise the county’s millage rate by 3 mills, a 16% increase. That huge jump (millage increases are typically incremental in fractions of percentage points) is reportedly going to make Dougherty’s tax rate – which includes, county, city of Albany and the Dougherty County School System taxes – tops in the state of Georgia.

Does Dougherty County need such an increase? Well, its dwindling tax base and continued loss of population certainly don’t help. (An aside here: At a public meeting before the commission railroaded MIke McCoy, Commission Chairman Lorenzo Heard proclaimed that one of McCoy’s most egregious sins was the ongoing loss of population, which he placed solely at McCoy’s feet. Don’t know who Heard is blaming for the loss that has continued in McCoy’s absence.)

But county property owners certainly have legitimate reasons to object given some of the reasons the commission has given for the need to collect yet more tax money.

Like … the 1.4% decline in the county’s tax digest … more than $700,000 in bonuses for county employees … doubling a contract with a lobbying firm (which includes FOLs – Friends of Lorenzo) that has, as of yet, had no positive impact on the county’s finances … a million dollars-plus gifted to a group (that commission members reportedly have more than a chummy relationship with) to “help create jobs” in the county. 

Hard-working employees deserve to be compensated for hard work, but handing out blanket bonuses to county employees is a farce because, frankly, many of them are the antithesis of hard-working. Anyone who’s dealt with surly county employees on a regular basis knows what I mean. These employees — and there are lots of them — act as if they’re doing you a favor to assist you, even though you are, in effect, their boss. And they certainly reflect poorly on employees who really work hard at their jobs.

And there is a large number of small businesses whose owners cannot afford to hand out bonuses, and the employees who are grateful for their jobs don’t expect them. Comments about how county employees “earned” bonuses are, for the most part, ridiculous.

When Heard and Commissioners Clinton Johnson, Gloria Gaines and Victor Edwards chose to hire the county’s current lobbying firm over one that had a long history of success with the county, they offered no reason for the change. The results have been a big fat zero; no new businesses or government grants credited to the firm. Yet the lobbyist has been rehired, at twice the rate of the previous firm.

And, perhaps most unbelievably, the commission is proposing a $1.1 million “gift” to Albany Community Together through which the agency that has no ties — other than personal ones — to the county would administer a revolving loan fund earmarked at assisting small businesses. And we’ve seen how these work in the past.

Commissioners who are supporting this tax increase have been relatively mum about their reasoning behind action that adds to the huge burden that county property owners are already paying, other than to talk about how their employees deserve to be given three-quarters of a million dollars of taxpayer money. (Can you say large voting bloc?)

If, as Heard proclaimed, Mike McCoy was fired for the decline in population in the county, then other heads should be rolling soon. And if these elected officials think assuring the county becomes the No. 1 taxing entity in the state is going to bring people here, well, perhaps the less than 30% of registered voters who actually vote should tell them otherwise.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].