Franklin Asks for Smaller Tax Hike

ATLANTA -- People who own property in the City of Atlanta found out Monday that Mayor Shirley Franklin is proposing a smaller property tax hike than she initially suggested it would have to be.

On Monday, she proposed a tax hike of 4.8 percent, which would be an additional 0.43 mill. She had initially suggested that a tax hike might have to be 20 percent or more.

In a statement Monday, her administration credited the updated Fulton County 2008 tax digest for the reduced tax hike proposal. "The digest indicates that a combination of increased growth and tax reassessments will require a smaller property tax increase to close our 2009 estimated budget gap."

• The owner of a $100,000 house would pay $7.31 a year more in property taxes.

• The owner of a $200,000 house would pay $24.51 a year more in property taxes.

• The owner of a $300,000 house would pay $41.71 a year more in property taxes.

Mayor Franklin had already said, on Saturday, that a smaller tax increase of about a half mill was likely. She has proposed a combination of tax hikes, spending cuts and revenue enhancements to make up a projected shortfall of $140 million in the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

"And I would challenge anyone to look at what's happening across the country and across the region, and they would find a point-five mill increase is a very modest increase," she said on Saturday. "And I am doing that in order to ensure that public safety remains intact."

Mayor Franklin has said repeatedly that those are the only two alternatives, and she refuses to cut police services.

The chair of the City Council Finance Committee, Howard Shook, has not wavered from his efforts to balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting police services. Shook said Monday, however, that the smaller tax hike proposal "might make a tax hike somewhat more palatable to some council members" when the council votes later in June.

"I don't believe that it's an either-or situation," said another council member, Mary Norwood, on Monday. Norwood said she cannot discuss, yet, the alternatives that council members are discussing.

Ultimately, Norwood said, the city must manage taxpayer funds better, and the council must take the lead in making that happen over the next year.

"We have not seen a total, top [to] bottom analysis of every employee and every department. We need to do that. But we need to have that so that we can go to taxpayers [next year] and say, we have completely streamlined this government."

One Atlanta homeowner, R. J. Morris, who has lived in the Virginia Highland area of NE Atlanta for 25 years, said he is fed up with the possibility of a tax hike, no matter how small the mayor is proposing it would be.

"The bottom line is, she's still using a four letter word that I don't like: More."

So, Morris said, he felt compelled to come to Monday afternoon's City Council meeting and tell the council members that they risk the voters' fury if they approve any tax hikes.

"Your constituents cannot vote against the budget" or the tax hike, Morris said. "But they can vote against you."

Morris has signed a petition circulated by the tax and government watchdog group, Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation.

Barbara Payne of the FCTF said that in just over three weeks, the petition already has about 1,500 signers calling on the city council to balance the budget without a tax hike.

"To be honest, we don't care if it's a five dollar increase or a five-hundred-dollar increase per property owner. We don't want any property tax increases," Payne said at a news conference outside City Hall Monday.

The foundation believes better City Hall management would allow for tax decreases. And Payne is inviting citizens to call the foundation at 404-636-1111 with tips about possible waste and corruption in Atlanta city operations.

"Where there is mismanagement, there has to be corruption," Payne said, acknowledging that she knows of no instances of corruption herself.

Morris repeated, after addressing the council, his message of political consequences befalling council members who vote for any tax hike.

"Because you can't go out there and, as the proverbial saying is, get blood out of a turnip, out of taxpayers. Because if you do, then the taxpayers' are going to get blood out of you," working against the reelection of those members at the next election in 2010.