Curt Deal describes his goals in seeking a third four-year term as a Bulloch County commissioner as “to continue to make Bulloch County a great place to live and raise a family” while providing opportunities, including good jobs, “for our kids and grandkids.”
Toward those aims, he defends last year’s sizeable property tax increase as necessary to hire and keep enough county employees and expand public safety services to meet the needs of a growing population. He also notes that it was the first actual millage rate increase for the county’s general fund budget in seven years.
Deal faces a challenger, Ray Davis, for the position elected by voters in District 2, a multi-seat district encompassing about two-thirds of Bulloch County. Both are running as Republicans, so the race will be decided in the May 21 Republican primary. Early voting is underway.
“What led me to becoming a commissioner was kind of my heart for service and serving Bulloch County and just the desire to make Bulloch County a great place to live and raise a family,” Deal said in an interview. “Even from the first election I’ve never had an agenda, so to speak, except for that.
“Probably my agenda now is just to continue the work and continue to make it a great place to live and now provide opportunities for our kids and grandkids to live here, with opportunities for good jobs,” he said.
His background
Although born in Waycross, he hails from an extended family of Deals who have lived in Bulloch County from longer ago. His great-grandfather had moved away, but Curt Deal’s parents moved to Bulloch when he was a teenager.
After graduating from Statesboro High School in 1990, Deal attended Georgia Southern for a couple of years, then went to Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service in Atlanta and attained a mortuary science degree.
He and his wife, Jenni, have been married 30 years and have brought up three children, Hannah, Harrison and Halli.
Harrison Deal, 20, died in a motor vehicle accident on I-16 in Chatham County in 2020, while doing campaign work for then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler and traveling to an event that featured Vice President Mike Pence.
Harrison “grew to love politics through me serving Bulloch County ….,” his father said this week. “He was a finance major (at the University of Georgia) and … he was my big campaign manager … and still is, just at a different level.”
Curt Deal worked in the funeral industry for 29 years, but retired from it early, and now 52, does some real estate and helps his daughters, ages 26 and 19, with the two stores they own, the Max + Molly Children’s Boutiques in Statesboro and Greensboro.
His family home is in the Mill Creek area. While his children were younger, he volunteered with Statesboro-Bulloch Parks and Recreation programs for more than 10 years. He is a member of First Baptist Church Statesboro, where he has served as a deacon.
First elected to the county board in 2016, Deal completed training provided by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia and is a fully certified county commissioner. He is also currently Board of Commissioners vice chairman.
Also serving on the Development Authority of Bulloch County, Deal is the only commissioner who is currently a voting member of the DABC board.
Tax questions
➤ When would a tax increase be justified?
“Well, we had that hard decision to make last year,” Deal said. “We had a lot of challenges before us, you know, public safety and employee recruitment and retention. Bulloch County has been growing organically before Hyundai, so there were challenges even before Hyundai and suppliers announced.”
Two years in a row, residential property valuations in appraisals by the county Board of Tax Assessors staff showed double-digit rates of increase as a result of inflation in the real estate market. Property owners paid higher taxes in 2022, but Deal is correct that that the commissioners did not increase the general millage rate that year, or in the five years before that. But a small millage rate rollback they approved in 2022 did not fully offset the value inflation, and the county government budgeted the increased revenue.
In 2023, however, the commissioners unanimously approved a millage rate increase, which compounded by value inflation, resulted in a 28% rise in tax on average across all property types, offset by homestead exemptions on owner-occupied homes.
“But in the last six years we did not have a millage increase, so we just had to do what we had to do last year,” Deal said, “and that was, there again, for public safety, our employees and recruitment. We were losing employees to the ports or to areas east of us, Savannah, Effingham, Bryan. The tax increase was for that and we increased across-the-board county employees salaries and enhanced the retirement, which was a good thing.”
County employees got an 8% pay raise and a new pension plan. The county also added a number of employees, especially in public safety. As part of this, the Emergency Medical Service has expanded to key rural fire stations.
“So I sleep good at night knowing that almost 90 percent of the county can be reached by ambulance in just under 10 minutes, and the goal is to keep expanding that, to Stilson,” Deal said. “You know we’ve got Brooklet, Brooklet was first; Portal was second; Register is online now and July 1 will be 24-hour, once the station gets expanded.”
➤ And when should a reduction in taxes be possible?
“I think that with what we did last year we’ll be in a good position to, hopefully, do a rollback this coming year, because of the economics, because announcements have been made on the (Hyundai) suppliers, so there’s the growth coming with that,” Deal said. “Restaurants have opened. The grocery store, Publix, is also a good example.”
Growth question
➤ How should the county deal with population growth and industrial development versus protection of rural land, water resources and lifestyles?
“We do need to manage the growth in a smart way,” Deal said. “The Land Use Map was just adopted. So as commissioners we’ve got to be disciplined to stay in those growth areas and not have ‘measle map’ development all over the county. …
“I think the higher-density development (limited to those target areas) would help preserve the farm land and open green space and our natural resources,” he said.
On the subject of the four high-capacity wells Bulloch and Bryan counties are to own, all located within Bulloch, to supply water to the Hyundai Motor Group plant, Deal notes that the state Environmental Protection Division recommended that the counties establish a fund to compensate any farmers and homeowners who have to modify wells as a result of falling groundwater levels.
“The wells are coming to Bulloch County and we’ve just got to embrace what’s been put before us and use the resources from the well revenue to put back into the community,” he said. “You know, I felt strong about a contingency fund. … We were discussing that even before the EPD put in that mandate.” Deal said he expects probably a $1 million fund to be established through the development authorities so that not all of the cost falls on county taxpayers.