GAINESVILLE — The latest version of the Hall County budget is bigger than the first, but the funding options for the plan have not changed. Commissioners are still looking at two ways to finance the now $93.6 million budget - a rollback of the millage rate to 5.735 or the maintaining of the current 5.989 millage rate.
Commissioners got the newest version of the budget Monday afternoon at the second of three public hearings on the budget. The third hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Hall County Government Center.
Among the citizens who addressed the Commission at Monday's hearing was former Hall County Commissioner Craig Lutz. Lutz told his former colleagues that primarily he was concerned about the process of the budget hearings, saying that the public doesn't get a fair shake.
"One of our expenditures - line items - is the rowing venue where we're going to take $100,000 out of the General Fund to help fund the [Olympic] rowing venue," said Lutz. "Morgan House [rowing venue manager] was allowed 20 minutes to come up here and explain why he should get taxpayer dollars, but we citizens are given two minutes to plead with you not to take our hard-earned money."
The other citizens who spoke urged commissioners to roll back the millage rate, all of them saying there's enough cushion in the General Fund to finance additional expenses in this year's budget.
David Williams said he didn't buy the argument that the county is "insolvent."
"You go from roughly $6 million [in the General Fund] a few years back to $22 million. I don't see how that's insolvent," said Williams.
GOP activist Tommy Sandoval said holding the millage rate at the FY15 level means more money out of his pocket.
"My other issue is tax increase," said Sandoval. "Very simply, if the existing taxpayers paid more this year than last year...then it's a tax increase, no matter how you slice it or manipulate it."
After hearing citizen comments, Commission Chair Dick Mecum told the audience that the current millage rate is the lowest the county has had since 1988. His main concern, he said is that there is little new growth in Hall County, so the tax base is not growing. He said he analyzed the history of the tax digest.
"When you look at this year, our increase over 2014 is 6.23% - this is the revenue coming in. Of that 4.43 is due to assessment growth...and 1.8% is due to natural growth, which means we're not growing - there's little growth," said Mecum.
He also noted that the county is losing qualified employees, especially in public safety, because the pay scale is substantially lower in Hall County than in surrounding counties.
"This budget is not balanced. It is not solvent," said Mecum. "Until we do get it there, I am not for rolling this [millage rate] back. We're going to need to get our employees going and we're going to need more for capital."
With Mecum's comments, the hearing was adjourned with no comments from other commissioners.
