Fayette's

county and city leaders will all get together to

hear the facts before deciding what to do about a

consultant's assertion that city residents pay

more than their fair share of taxes.

FUTURE,

the Fayette United Team to Use Resources

Effectively, a committee of elected and appointed

officials, had planned to negotiate a solution to

the tax inequities and then submit the final plan

to city councils and the County Commission for

approval.

But

after beginning negotiations last week, the group

decided that those who will make the final

decision should hear the facts all at one time,

said Harold Bost, County Commission chairman.

"That

way we could all be there and ask our questions

and listen to the answers to the questions,"

said Bost.

County

officials probably will have some pointed

questions about the methodology used to arrive at

the conclusion that residents of Fayetteville,

Peachtree City and Tyrone are overcharged about

$2 million a year for services from the county

government, Bost said.

"Our

guys are going to have a lot of questions to

justify to themselves to trust the report,"

said Bost.

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. Officials agreed to share the

cost of a study to determine who was right.

In

a FUTURE meeting May 15, consultant Steve Burnett

of Governmental Solutions Inc. said his study

revealed that the municipal officials were right.

"We

have a tax inequity problem in the Sheriff's

Department," he said, adding that inequities

also exist in public works, but not in libraries

and recreation as city leaders had suggested.

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.

Members

of the city councils and County Commission will

be checking their appointment calendars over the

next few days, looking for times that everyone

can get together for a meeting of the Association

of Fayette County Governments.

AFCG

includes all of the members of the governing

bodies, whereas FUTURE members are appointed

representatives of each body.

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