Whitfield, Dalton still far apart on revenue split

Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Babb said board members should have a new proposal on how to divide Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) revenues for the Dalton City Council to consider soon.

“We will probably have a counter-proposal to them some time by the end of the week, probably Thursday,” Babb said.

Commissioners were slated to discuss LOST negotiations in an executive session closed to the public and media Monday night.

“We had a previous executive session last week with the county attorney to go over their proposal. We’ll have an executive session tonight to go over some numbers that (County Administrator Mark Gibson) has put together,” Babb said before the meeting.

The groups met in July for the first discussions about how to split the 1 percent LOST. State law requires that agreement to be renegotiated every 10 years after the results of the latest census are in.

The LOST currently brings in about $17.2 million a year, and under the current LOST agreement negotiated 10 years ago the county gets 83.24 percent, Dalton gets 14.93 percent, Cohutta gets 0.38 percent, Tunnel Hill gets 0.65 percent and Varnell gets 0.8 percent.

Commissioners presented a plan that would split the money for the next 10 years with 69.74 percent to the county, 27.55 percent to Dalton, 0.55 percent to Cohutta, 0.71 percent to Tunnel Hill and 1.45 percent to Varnell.

Dalton officials responded with a proposal that the city get 45 percent of LOST dollars and the county 50.967 percent, with the rest split between the county’s smaller cities.

“We told them at the first meeting, when they said 45 percent, that we just couldn’t agree to that. There would have to be a judge tell us to do that,” Babb said. “We will have something back to them, looking at areas of agreement and areas of disagreement. But anything we offer to them to settle this might be different if we have to go before a judge. We’ll make concessions to get a settlement. But if we can’t get a settlement, all bets are off.”

The county sent a letter to the cities to start the LOST negotiations on June 28. They have 60 days from that date to reach an agreement. If they don’t, they will go through 60 days of non-binding arbitration. If they still can’t reach an agreement, the matter will go to a Superior Court judge from outside the district who will decide the matter, similar to baseball arbitration, by picking one side’s offer.

The talks will also produce a service delivery agreement that spells out what services each government will provide. Babb said the city and county are closer on some of those issues. Both the city and county proposal, for instance, include a plan to merge the parks and recreation departments of each government.

“That’s something that’s doable. I think that will be one of the things we talk about (in the executive session). We want that to be part of the service delivery agreement,” Babb said.

Dalton Mayor David Pennington agreed.

“We are really there on that side of it. I think we are also basically in agreement that the city is going to take total charge of the trade center. We are getting down now to two things, the sales tax split and the unincorporated county services that are going into the special tax districts,” Pennington said.

Commissioners have proposed creating special tax districts to fund the county fire department and the county’s share of the Dalton-Whitfield Joint Development Authority (JDA), the Dalton-Whitfield Library and the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority so that Dalton taxpayers are no longer paying for services that primarily benefit residents outside the city.

Dalton officials want additional services, including the county’s share of recreation department funding, to be funded out of special tax districts.

Last year, a state Superior Court judge found in favor of 15 cities that had sued Gwinnett County, ruling their residents don’t have to pay taxes to fund services that primarily benefit residents of unincorporated Gwinnett County. Gwinnett officials at first filed an appeal, but earlier this year they agreed to settle the suit and pay the cities $32 million. They also agreed to create four special tax districts to fund services such as fire protection and police services outside those cities that provide those services.

Local News

Search Results

Related Links

Discussion

Whitfield, Dalton still far apart on revenue split

But officials see more unity on rest of tax agreement

Site Map

Contact Us