Possible tax increase studied

Possible tax increase studied

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Tuesday, July 12. 2011

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A proposed 9.47% increase over the rollback millage rate is being considered by the Lamar County board of commissioners, but the hope is that more budget cuts will accomplish the same result as would the tax increase, reported chairman Jay Matthews.

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#1 Lamar Snarkman on 07/12/11 at 05:01 AM

I would hope that if property tax rates increase then the $80 fire fee would be eliminated. That is something I will keep in mind, at least, when the next election comes around.

#2 Anonymous on 07/12/11 at 10:30 AM

When are the people on Thomaston St and other places going to be have property values corrected up from the discount rates they get?

#3 H B on 07/12/11 at 11:05 AM

When will the Smoke and Mirrors stop, and good business management take place. I would think not increasing any departments budget would be a first move, and reducing non necessary items in their budgets be eliminated. This would be similar to what some of those commissioners do with their own check books.

#4 Anonymous on 07/12/11 at 12:33 PM

Raise the property taxes and force us to shop outside Lamar to pinney pinch. Raise sales tax that everyone shares. Just because some people have the fortune to own property or a home does not make it right to pay for those who were unable to own for any reason. Raise sales tax raise tobacco and Liq taxes. Question if it is worth builing in Lamar as taxes continuee to increase it is not an economic county to live in.

#5 Jessica on 07/12/11 at 01:14 PM

Did we just not have a tax increase last year??? And a extra tax per house in lamar county it was like 100$ or something.. i remember paying it but not how much it was...This not right, soon I will be paying taxes that are more than my morgage payment.

#6 Anonymous on 07/12/11 at 01:19 PM

We don't need roads and rails. We are need a jobs. No hires more sheriffs. But I think. Sheriff Larry Waller need to stand up. I see 100 deputies and 40 jail beds. Sheriffs cuts or Jail cuts? Cut 60 sheriff deputies and cut 20 jail beds.

#7 Still feed up on 07/12/11 at 04:06 PM

If we are going to experience a 10% increase in taxes lets apply that percentage to county government in the form of cost saving reductions, Reduce county work week by 10%,reduce county pay rates by 10%, reduce capital equipment by 10%,reduce county employees by 10%, reduce Employee benefits by 10%, raise thermostats in county offices by 10% for summer and 10% lower in winter. Eliminate county vehicles going to employee homes by 100%. Why is it necessary to have so many County offices. We have the court house, we have the annex, we have the tax office, we have the old academy complex and I'm sure we have some offices in the county barn. Lord, don't even get me started on what the school system has in the way of facilities. It seems to me that even the janitors have their own private offices. Barnesville is a community with many senior citizens who are on fixed SS income. We need eliminatio of duplication.

Perhaps we should let Barnesvlle annex the entire county and we could eliminate county government, duplicate law enforcement and a lot of duplication along with the water authority (thats the other shoe that still is to drop)

#8 rankin fyle on 07/12/11 at 05:33 PM

Consolidating govenment would certainly save $800,000

#9 Anonymous on 07/12/11 at 06:03 PM

Anyone surprised? Everything else is cutting back amid the economic downturn. Not government, they just keep on like nothing has changed.

Can we start shooting these people yet?

#10 BTDT on 07/12/11 at 06:40 PM

You cant fix stupid

#11 No-Name on 07/12/11 at 07:23 PM

Instead of a tax increase, we need a Government Decrease. Instead of the Commissioners cutting $800,000 off the budget, we should DEMAND they cut $1,000,000 off the budget.

#12 Anonymous on 07/12/11 at 08:57 PM

Go ahead and raise property taxes. Then what are you going to use as your backup next year. Place that fake Fire & EMS tax upon us seems like Jay us running out of options to cover his own expenditures.

#13 Anonymous on 07/13/11 at 04:42 AM

uhh, why are they doing this after the July 7 article here states they are cutting budget by $800,000 ??

#14 Anonymous on 07/13/11 at 06:09 AM

I keep saying this, Jimmy Hearn and Charles Glass are such a disappoinment, thought they would do what is right for the county. boy was I wrong, bend over

#15 Tom Rauch on 07/13/11 at 08:09 AM

I think people are being unreasonable.

This problem is not the sole creation of Jay Matthews or the current commissioners.

I certainly have my differences with the county. They forced me to fire two or three people and cut off six figures of out-of-state cash flow that was disbursed in this county, but I don't blame any individual. It is really mass foolishness.

Someone has to rethink how we do things and make it easier to employ people and create jobs. For example there should be a list of resources and advantages for locating in Lamar. We could do a whole lot better than the IDA does with a citizens group of people who have really started successful national or international businesses from ground up.

It is silly to recirculate money that is in this area when we can draw money in from other areas. It is about as dumb to do that as for a parent to pay his own child in order to increase household income!

Virtually ALL of the growth in jobs is in small business. While the county throws money at the IDA, other county rules are used to force taxes out of the county and strangle the very thing that creates nearly all new jobs in the USA.

I have people calling me every few weeks offering money that could create jobs, and I tell them "no thanks, it is too much headache". In the meantime, we all pay for people who are out of work.

This mess was not created by Matthews or the present commissioners. The things causing our problems have been festering for years, and no one seems to interesting in fixing the real problems.

#16 GM on 07/13/11 at 09:17 AM

Tom,
I've said it before. Why don't you run for the chair and start making the needed changes. You say that you know and understand the problems but not stepping up to the plate; doesn't that make you a part of the problem? Although we haven't seen eye to eye on everything, I've always considered you intelligent and concerned and I've always agreed on much of what you say. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

#17 Anonymous on 07/13/11 at 09:18 AM

The government needs to stay out of the taxpayers pocket!!! Stop giving all of these freebies to people who choose not to earn their own. make them do without instead of making the taxpayer support their lazy as---. A HAND UP SHOULD NOT BE A HAND TO WIPE THE TAXPAYERS FACE IN THEIR SORRY AS---!!

#18 Sheila Tolley on 07/13/11 at 09:33 AM

Tom, you have some good thoughts but people are not being unreasonable.

You state that "This problem is not the sole creation of Jay Matthews or the current commissioners." That is the same ridiculous excuse that obama defenders use when they say that illegal immigrants are not obama's problem. They say, "the problem already existed when he took office." EXACTLY. That is WHY it is his problem. We did not wrap up 12 million illegal immigrants (2008 numbers), put a bow on them and sit them on The White House steps after obama took office. He did not inherit the problem. He made a bid on the job of president of our country and WON! When he put his (illegal, un-American) name in the hat, he WON!

It is no different than buying a car "AS IS." If it has a bad transmission...it is your transmission, baby. One that YOU need to fix.

#19 Isaiah 45:22 on 07/13/11 at 11:12 AM

I was born in Lamar County (Barnesville) 40 years ago. I don’t live there now but occasionally I visit the website to see what is going on. I think one of the main problems in our country, government and society is the sense of entitlement. I work for a company whose CEO makes every bit over 10 million in stocks, salary and benefits. But, when I started working here, I agreed to a set salary and yes I do get raises and such but I don’t feel that I’m entitled to that man’s money. Government has created this society of entitlements. It’s a great way to keep people voting for you. Why would a government live conservatively when they can simply live lavishly and then raise taxes? They do that because they (Government) feel that they are entitled to the money of its citizens. Indeed, the Government has the constitutional right to collect taxes but it seems that the people have become a means to an end. People are hurting and are told to cut back but they are penalized for doing so because any extra money they get by cutting back is then taken in the form of higher taxes. Government can’t seem to find ways to cut but they do find ways to continue spending.

In 2006, I was listening to John Hagee and he told his church, “If you’re in debt, you’d better get out of it.” Our Federal Government seems to have a case of the “can’t help it”. They can’t help spending money.

Soon there will be no tax payers because there will be no jobs for people to make a living. If you want to read a good book, try Edward Gibbon, “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire”.

#20 Anonymous on 07/13/11 at 02:07 PM

Raise Sales Tax, where everyone has to contribute, not just home and property owners!!!!!!

#21 No-Name on 07/13/11 at 02:41 PM

We're not being unreasonable. Most of us are just plain tired of the guvment taking and taking. Then giving and giving OUR money away. Not only giving our money to people that have no intention of ever trying to support themselves, but also on the Federal level. I read that around 20% of the U.N's budget comes from the U.S. We are tired of the guvment pissing our money away.

#22 Ron on 07/13/11 at 04:39 PM

the government does NOT have the constititional right to collect income tax....the 16th ammendment was never ratified legally....they just do it because they can.
They duped the folks in 1933 to believing if they gave the government a percentage of their wages...they would put it away for them...LIARS.
The money was used to pay back the centralized banks...a false debt...a debt we continue to think we owe and can NEVER be paid back. It's a Ponzi scheme. We don't owe the federal reserve anything. They owe us.
We need to rid this country of the federal reserve and imprison anyone named Rockefellar and Rothschild. Then and only then will we see American's do what we do....grow and prosper.

#23 Anonymous on 07/13/11 at 06:01 PM

,"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.", - Alexis de Tocqueville (in "Democracy in America") Is this not what Obamamania and Congress have in mind for us?

#24 Tom Rauch on 07/13/11 at 06:48 PM

Gary,

I don't have time or inclination to take on any huge responsibility. I certainly would be willing to contribute what I can towards attracting small clean businesses that have no negative impact on local resources.

Sheila,

Before anything can ever be fixed, we have to understand why it is broken.

The mess we are in started a long time ago when our leaders decided manufacturing jobs weren't important. It was aggravated by people wanting too much for nothing. This is a multi-party mess, and has nothing to do with national debt or taxes.

That stuff everyone is whining about is just a diversion from the real problems.

#25 Misfit on 07/13/11 at 09:42 PM

The real problem is people who try and throw their weight around to get what they want. It never happens and they only get madder and madder as they start to figure that out everyone has their number.

#26 Anonymous on 07/14/11 at 01:55 PM

If you are a property owner, go to the next meeting and simply say NOOOOOOOO, I'll be there,

#27 Anonymous on 07/14/11 at 06:31 PM

Don't raise any taxes. Cut spending like the rest of us.

#28 jenky on 07/15/11 at 09:52 AM

Just a big a problem is the massive amounts of unneeded (and undeserved) corporate welfare to companies like big oil. Not to mention cutting taxes on ultra wealthy to lowest rate in untold number of years with the bogus argument this creates jobs, which is bs. If it creates any jobs, most of them are overseas.

#29 Anonymous on 07/15/11 at 11:34 AM

Its my understanding that only about half of the fire fee bills have been paid. Are the commissioners going to make everyone pay, or will they be giving refunds?

#30 seems like an accountability issue on 07/15/11 at 12:06 PM

we moved to barnesville 14 years ago and have enjoyed living here and have made many friends over the years. we don't have a problem paying our fair share of taxes and understand that nothing is free. we understand that growth has a price as well. i guess what i don't understand is where our dollars are being spent and is there any accountability as to increased spending. we see full disclosure printed numerous times in the herald-gazette for the lamar county schools....tax digest...,the county tax digest and the city tax digest. this information, while helpful to understand the income/assessment/millage side of the budget, doesn't address the expense/spending side....which is the telling side of how our administrators...city, county and school.... are handling their responsibilities and our money.
having personally been responsible for a budget of over $100 million annually on my job, my bosses held me accountable for the spending/expense side of my budget moreso than the income side. my company is a "fortune 500" corporation and each year when planning began on a new budget, you could count on each division being asked to trim 5-10% of expenses/spending regardless of the projected income/revenue. once approved by our board of directors, each division head was held accountable to that budget....reports would be generated weekly/monthly/quarterly and often we would have to adjust spending midstream...in other words, we were held accountable.
my question is.... how do we know our administrators are acting in a similar responsible fashion.
the property taxes our our house...(city,county and school) have increased 160% in the 14 years we have lived here.that is an average of 11.4% every year for the last 14. it has been a combination of higher assessment and higher millage....so where has this money been spent?
until something is done on the expense/spending side of this process, you can count on either our assessment continuing to increase and/or our millage continuing to increase.

#31 Sheila Tolley on 07/15/11 at 12:15 PM

It is quite a challenge when the weak link of our chain of survival is at the top. We have allowed the people that we should have been able to trust to turn our 'once mighty nation' into a joke to all the world.

We waste precious time debating on foolish questions such as, "should Beverly Hall be required to pay back her bonus money to a tune of $585,000?" I can answer that in one second. Hell yes...with interest.

Why didn't Gretchen pay back the money that was unauthorized? Facts that are hidden are facts that need to be SHOWN TOTALLY TO THE PUBLIC.

Sorry Ass Bill Clinton signed Nafta. Please don't come back and tell me about all the others who approved of it. Bill (I fooled all America and got caught by a slut) Clinton signed it. Damn him for closing the textile industry in America. Then, we as a nation, re-elected the man of no morals for another 4 years.

Now look at what we have in The White House. What a joke! A jerk with his entire history sealed to the public. What is wrong with that picture? How dare him to say that he cannot promise that Social Security checks will be mailed in August? That is not a gratuity. The government OWES the money to its recipients. I am so happy that obama is not an American.

Where are the likes of John Wilkes Booth when we need him?

#32 Sheila Tolley on 07/15/11 at 12:20 PM

Ten Four Good Buddy. I overheard a conversation last week in the grocery store. A lady asked another lady how her brother was doing. She replied, " he was working but he quit because he makes more money from unemployment since obama extended it again." Isn't that pitiful?????????

#33 cats on 07/15/11 at 01:11 PM

Is this true?
Because I paid mine. Of course that means that when they come around looking for our donation this next year, IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
But if half of the fees have not been collected, and they aren't going to pursue those who ignored the bill, I will be looking for my refund.

#34 GM on 07/19/11 at 11:25 AM

House Republicans pushed toward a vote on legislation that would raise the nation's debt limit in exchange for trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts and congressional approval of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. But it is facing a veto threat from the White House.

We want congress to cut spending and they are trying, so why does the WH object to a requirement to have a balanced budget?

#35 No-Name on 07/23/11 at 08:07 AM

Where are all the SPLOST supporters now? The ones that believed voting YES on SPLOST will keep property taxes from going up? When will people learn that ANY tax increase is bad?

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