Avondale Master Plan Requires Tax Increase
May 2, 2008So, by now you’ve probably heard about the city staff layoffs and proposed property tax increases in Atlanta to pay off their big, fat $140 million debt, but were you aware that Avondale Estates is also considering a tax hike?
The AJC reports that Avondale is considering a 5.96% increase as a result of the new city budget. A closer look at the budget (by yours truly) shows that unlike Atlanta’s blatant overspending, the Avondale property tax increase is due to the city’s new “Master Plan”, which redevelops much of the tutor-style downtown and needed improvements to an aging sewer system.
You want to improve your community, you gotta foot the bill! As Decatur residents are well aware…
Would this be necessary had they annexed Wal-Mart and thus collected the property and sales tax from the site? Just curious.
Good point … but it probably would not change things. As I understand it, the City had to make major changes to its master plan to accommodate the new zoning. This meant over $100,000 in legal and consulting fees to get the master plan and zoning ordinance in line to handle the development that is about to occur. The city’s police force is at full staffing for the first time in many years, according to another blog site, which means increased cost for salaries. Gasoline prices have sharply increased, so it costs more to operate their public works trucks and police cars. They hired a new city manager for $122k, which is about $14k more than the previous fella. Yadda, yadda, yadda … in the end, it all adds up … this city’s tax base is nearly 100 percent residential and with the creation of its TAD, next year won’t see any increased revenue over and above the current amounts because of the freeze. In addition, with the Georgia Duck (Fenner Dunlop) moving out later this year, they will lose on utility fees from power (just as they are now from those empty buildings that soon will be demolished. End of the day, the increase looks to bring in only about $100k, which isn’t a large increase as the AJC makes it look out to be … in fact, according to the AJC’s archive, the city posted the same 11 mills last year with the same proposed tax increase but didn’t execute anything that high … that makes me think they did it as a placeholder to buy time to get citizen input and decide where they need to set their budget for the next fiscal year. That is my humble opinion.