DeKalb City Residents See Mysterious Tax Increases, Mayors Want Answers
Decatur Metro | August 27, 2012The AJC reports that DeKalb’s city mayors will attend a county budget meeting on Tuesday that will attempt to explain…
…Why DeKalb adjusted property tax rates for services like police, parks, roads and fire protection that cities can pay the county for or provide themselves, but not for those same services in the unincorporated area.
According to the article, Decatur residents saw an 11% increase in the specialized police services (K9, SWAT, etc…) that we still pay for, while County residents saw no increase in cost for those same services. Meanwhile, Chamblee’s police rate went up 18%, and Dunwoody – who opts out of DeKalb Police entirely, saw an overall increase of 15%.
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Quite simple really. The county wants money from the cities.
Yeah, they’re mad that the cities finally won the HOST case.
Can you blame them, when cities continually poach the source of their revenue?
Actually, yes I can. The residents of unincorporated Dekalb had their rates for the same services decrease, despite the fact that they are using a larger proportionate share of many of the services. If the rates increased consistently across the board due to increased expenses, that would be more tolerable. But, shifting an increased portion of the burden to residents of cities appears to be done out of spite and is unacceptable.
Further, and perhaps most importantly, if Dekalb County wasn’t run so incompetently, there would be no demand for these new cities. Although there a lot of advantages to these cities, there are a lot of costs as well. The county brought this problem on themselves and expect others to pay for it.
+1,000
Folk s are requesting to be added to cities ostensibly for better quality services and responsive government.
For what? Legal expenses?
Dekalb County always seems to be in court
-as a defendant
“Further, and perhaps most importantly, if Dekalb County wasn’t run so incompetently, there would be no demand for these new cities.”
Yet these new cities, Decatur included, keep having DeKalb County provide services that should be provided by the cities. Here’s an idea, cut the cord.
If the county continues to play this game, the cities may decide to do build their own instead of buying them from the county. For specialized services like SWAT and K9 that are used only occasionally, it would probably not be an efficient solution for Decatur to build on our own.
But Decatur could decide to team up with the other cities to do just that. This is our source of leverage in the negotiation, and I hope the mayors are not being subtle in their suggestion that this is an option.
County government created for rural places with lots of people scattered around unincorporated areas. Atlanta region should keep forming cities (known elsewhere as … “towns”) and gradually get rid of the county governments entirely.
But then what would the talentless relatives of the politically connected do to earn their livings?
The Publix annexation is the first step towards Decatur taking Emory and CDC. Just sit back and watch.
Neither pay property taxes. Why would Decatur want Emory or the CDC.
You beat me to it.
Prestige.
I assume you know that the CDC isn’t subject to local ordinances, including zoning (see the supremacy clause of the US Constitution), and Decatur would have zero control over CDC’s campus. It is an island, regardless of the jurisdiction in which it sits. Plus, I am not sure it can be annexed without consent. And I believe the people running this city have enough sense not to annex Emory for “prestige”, especially since it will be a huge net loss to our tax base. Our new slogan could be “We may be stupid, but we’re prestigious!”.
Right, because when people think of Emory, stupidity is the first thing that comes to mind.
Actually, lately, cheating is what comes to mind.
The plum prize is Druid Hills and its home values.
Indeed
Agree with AMB although I wouldn’t be surprised if Druid Hills incorporated into a separate city.