Now

that the Pandora's Box of tax inequity has been

opened, it may be some time before it is closed

again.

"I

expect there will be several more meetings to

discuss this," said Fayette County

Commission Chairman Harold Bost following a

meeting of the Association of Fayette County

Governments to discuss tax issues last week.

AFCG

was chosen as the best forum for all of Fayette's

city and county elected officials to hear a

consultant's suggestion that city residents in

Fayette pay a little over $2 million in taxes to

subsidize services in the unincorporated areas of

the county.

The

alleged inequity amounts to about eight tenths of

a mill in property taxes, or about $57 in taxes

on a $200,000 home.

As

might be expected, county commissioners had the

bulk of questions for Steve Burnett, consultant

with Governmental Solutions Inc.

Burnett

was hired jointly by the county and cities after

Tyrone Councilman Ronnie Cannon voiced the

opinion that the town's residents were being

shortchanged in county-wide services, and

officials in Peachtree City and Fayetteville

later joined in the refrain.

After

studying the services and tax structures of all

the governments involved, Burnett said city

residents are overtaxed, mainly for services from

the Sheriff's, Public Works and Recreation

departments.

Central

functions of the Sheriff's Department, like the

jail and administration of the office, should be

paid for by all county residents, Burnett said.

But traffic and patrol services go mainly to

county residents, and shouldn't be included in

city residents' tax bills, he said.

Commissioner

Greg Dunn questioned that assertion. "You're

saying that the Sheriff's Department never

renders assistance to the city police?" he

wondered.

The

few times that sheriff's deputies are called for

incidents within the cities, Burnett said, all

are requests for help getting into locked cars,

he said. The Criminal Investigations Division

never gets involved within the cities'

jurisdictions, he said, and the Traffic Division

is 93 percent county-only.

Commissioners

said they want to double check those findings

with Sheriff Randall Johnson. "We want to

satisfy ourselves that the allocations of

expenses at the Sheriff's Department and the

approach taken are acceptable to us," Bost

said after the meeting.

Likewise,

Burnett said, the county's Public Works

Department maintains many collector roads and

thoroughfares, and those costs should be born by

all county residents. But maintenance of

subdivision streets in the unincorporated area

should be paid for by county-only residents, he

said.

But

Bost told The Citizen that Burnett is using the

same expense figures for both kinds of roads.

"It costs a heck of a lot more to maintain a

mile of that sort of road [major highway] than it

does a subdivision road," Bost said.

City

officials, on the other hand, have objected to

Burnett's characterization of library and

recreation services as "county-wide,"

since Peachtree City and Tyrone both provide

their own libraries, and all three cities provide

recreation. But that's their choice, Burnett

said. And there aren't enough records of who is

using those services from which areas to prove

that they are county-only, he said.

Officials

will probably begin the process of negotiating a

solution to the conundrum Burnett has given them

in mid-July. A meeting of the FUTURE (Fayette

United Team to Use Resources Efficiently) will be

called as soon as it can be arranged, he said.

"Overall

I think it's a good process," Bost said of

the discussions. "We're all after the same

thing - tax equity."

But

he added, "I really don't anticipate having

to sit down at the very end and write a check.

Relations between the county and city are the

best they've been in recent history," he

added.

Once

the city and county leaders agree on how much

inequity actually exists, they may be able to

negotiate joint services and special tax

districts as a way to even things out, rather

than having to increase taxes in the

unincorporated areas and reducing them in the

cities.

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