Residents

of unincorporated Fayette County owe their

neighbors in the county's cities a little over $2

million a year.

That's

the bottom line in a draft reaport from

Governmental Solutions Inc., a consulting firm

hired by local governments to settle a

disagreement over how taxes and services are

distributed.

City

officials in recent months have complained that

their residents are subsidizing services for

residents in unincorporated areas, and county

officials have countered that they believed

county-only residents have been paying more than

their fair share.

Amid

nervous jokes about which government entities

should have brought a checkbook to the meeting,

Steve Burnett of Governmental Solutions issued

his draft report at Tuesday's gathering of the

FUTURE Committee. FUTURE (Fayette United Team to

Utilize Resources Effectively) is a group of

elected and appointed officials from all of

Fayette's governments that has been working for

about two years to find ways the governments can

cooperate to reduce the overall tax burden on

residents.

The

"tax inequity" question came before the

committee after Tyrone Town Councilman Ronnie

Cannon aired his feelings on the matter during a

council meeting. Later, officials in Fayetteville

and Peachtree City expressed their own feelings

that their residents were being shortchanged.

"County-only

folks need to pay more for public works,"

said Burnett Tuesday, later adding, "We have

a tax inequity problem in the Sheriff's

Department."

Slight

inequities also exist in emergency medical

services as well, said Burnett.

Fayetteville

residents are paying $321,424 more in county

taxes than they are receiving in county services,

according to Burnett's report, while Peachtree

City residents are shortchanged about $1.3

million, and Tyrone residents pay $130,505 too

much.

City

officials objected to the fact that Burnett's

study found no inequity in how library and

recreation services are dispersed in the county.

Peachtree

City residents have their own library and

wouldn't logically drive to Fayetteville for that

service, said city manager Jim Basinger.

"That's

a duplication of services that the cities chose

to do," said Burnett, adding that detailed

records simply don't exist that tell how many

county library patrons come from within the

cities. "I can't prove it's not a

county-wide service," he said.

The

same is true of recreation services, he added.

What

now?

FUTURE

Committee members will begin what is expected to

be a lengthy negotiation process next Tuesday at

8 a.m. at the Wendell Coffee Golf Center in

Tyrone.

Burnett's

recommendations include several options for how

to address the inequities, including simply

increasing property taxes for unincorporated

county residents while reducing them in the

cities.

Fee

increases for specific services also are an

option, he said. "Every dollar of fees would

offset a tax dollar," he said.

The

officials also should consider setting up more

special tax districts so that the residents of a

specific area would be taxed for a specific

service, he suggested.

And

the county could directly handle more services

inside the city limits, he added.

"Additional

special tax districts should be used to better

account for taxes and benefits as the long-term

solution," said Burnett, adding that a

reasonable time to accomplish this would be

somewhere around 2002. "You can continue to

explore joint ventures in the meantime," he

said.

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