About 100 people filled the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners' recently expanded meeting room Aug. 7 for the first of three hearings on the county government's proposed 1.5-mill property tax rate hike. When one speaker asked, most of those present stood to show they oppose the increase.

After 20 citizens initially signed up to speak, more than 15 actually spoke and were allowed five minutes each. Two more hearings on the tax rate proposal will be held on the next two Mondays, Aug. 14 and Aug. 21, both at 6:30 p.m. Then the commissioners are slated to vote to set the millage rate during an 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22, meeting.

"We do not take this proposal lightly. We know it's not popular," commissioners Chairman Roy Thompson read from a prepared statement at the start of the first hearing. "We are providing three separate meetings, at night, because we want to give as many people a chance to be heard as possible."

One thing that makes the proposed millage rate increase "not popular" is that it would follow inflation, averaging about 13.2%, in the assessed value of real estate and other taxable property as determined by the county Board of Tax Assessors. Together, the inflation and the proposed rate increase would create a 28.04% general property tax increase, as stated in the county's formal notices, for taxed properties on average. Increases in property values vary with type and location, so the total tax increases vary as well.

The commissioners already approved the fiscal year 2024 county budget, with increased revenue and spending projections, in June, and that budget has been in effect since July 1.

Public safety priority

"In its simplest form, 90 percent of the revenue that increased property taxes would bring is driven by personnel and support cost; 80 percent of that 90 percent leverages additional public safety personnel," County Manager Tom Couch told the Aug. 7 crowd. "I hope the citizens try to understand this proposal is public safety directed, so we can have enough first-responders and support resources to answer calls for emergencies."

Sheriff Noel Brown and county Public Safety and EMA Director Ted Wynn also spoke in support of the increased funding for personnel in their departments.

For the Bulloch County Sheriff's Office and Jail, the fiscal 2024 budget adds two new court services officers, one patrol deputy, six jailers and two school resource officers. The school resource officers will serve at Brooklet Elementary School and Bulloch Academy, with the Bulloch County Board of Education and the private academy, respectively, supplying a majority of the cost during the school year.

For the Emergency Medical Service, the budget funds six new EMTs or paramedics to staff a planned Portal substation, and another six EMTs or paramedics to staff a Register substation, beginning in January 2024, plus one added training officer. The Portal and Register EMS crews will operate from spaces in the Bulloch County Fire Department stations in those communities.

"The calls for service have simply outpaced our ability to handle our calls for service…," Wynn said. "EMS working out of two stations in a county this size is unacceptable. … and we will have four stations, probably by January 30th."

The fiscal 2024 budget, now in effect, also includes an 8% across-the-board raise for most county employees, estimated to cost a little over $1.9 million. The exceptions are part-time seasonal employees, who got an increase last year.

This budget projects total general fund expenditures of $60.9 million, an increase of $10 million from the past fiscal year.

Department chiefs such as Brown have said that the pay raise is needed to help the county retain employees and hire new ones in competition with business and industry, as well as with other counties and cities.

Couch noted that the 1.75-mill increase he recommended before the budget was approved has been dialed back to a 1.5-mill increase. Bulloch County has separate fire service millage rates for areas outside the cities, and county officials also proposed increasing these. But while the proposed increase for the "rural" fire district served by the Bulloch County Fire Department remains 1.03 mills, a previously suggested 0.75-mill increase in the five-mile "Statesboro" fire district — outside the city but served by the Statesboro Fire Department — has been eliminated and replaced with a 0.405-mill decrease in that rate.

Opposition speakers

Lawton Sack, chairman of the Bulloch County Republican Party, was the first citizen to speak in opposition to the tax hike. He said he had been listening to many people who call him, and hoped the commissioners would do the same.

"People want their voices heard, and there are a lot of people in this room that aren't elegant speakers, and they want to stand before you just to tell you from their heart that they can't afford these tax increases," Sack said.

Two questions that had been presented to him were whether the Board of Commissioners had chosen corporations over the citizens of the county and whether citizens' voices would be heard or if the decision had already been made, he said.

"Those are two tough questions to answer because from appearances, it does seem that corporations have been chosen over citizens. These tax abatements … are on the forefront of their minds," Sack said. "They didn't vote for these corporations to come, but they feel like they're having to pay for them."

He was one of several speakers to link the proposed tax increase with the property tax abatements provided through the Development Authority of Bulloch County to several new industries announced in the past year and a half. Tax abatements, created through lease agreements with the tax-exempt Development Authority, have long been a tool of industrial recruitment. The DABC's recent abatements have amounted to 10-year full exemptions, sometimes followed by a five-year 50% exemption, from the county government portion of the millage. But these latest agreements require the companies to make payments equal to the school and fire service portions of the millage.

Saying "enough is enough," the second speaker, Bruce Simons, called for a halt to tax abatements for industries and noted that he has for months been asking the county for a freeze on assessment increases.

"Based on the total tax digest and the current millage rates, the county after the 2023 value increases … would receive $5 million more in property tax revenue," county resident Cassandra Mikell said to the commissioners. "Your total (2024) budget asks for $10 million more. Split the difference with the taxpayers and just keep the current millage rate."

Seniors spokesman

Bill Emley described himself as one of four elected representatives of a Bulloch County Senior Citizens group with 1,470 members. After noting that Couch and other county staff members had said the tax increase was needed "to catch up in providing basic levels of service after inflation" plus years of delayed hiring and building renovations and "also to prepare for future growth," Emley said the county should cut any unnecessary spending in order to cover basic needs.

"How can you sit there and give a pay raise to the county employees of 8 percent and these people sitting here are going into their life savings, deeper and deeper into debt?" he said. "It doesn't add up, and it doesn't hold water."