Tax Victories and Defeat, Cartersville Meetings 8/17! Bartow Republican Party Joins Fight for Citizens.
Adairsville reverses planned tax hike! Euharlee cuts taxes! Bartow Republican Party issues call to stop tax hikes.
It has been a long time since citizens have seen a CUT to their property taxes in Bartow County. But we can thank the City of Euharlee for showing that taxes can actually be CUT, while most other Bartow governments want to RAISE the taxes. Ok, it is a tiny cut, but it is not an increase. The Euharlee City Council originally planned to adopt the Rollback rate (to keep taxes the same as last year). But at their meeting this week went below THAT millage rate to actually cut taxes. If you live in Euharlee, call them and thank them!
Adairsville also reversed a planned tax cut by adopting the rollback rate of 1.610, preventing a possible 15.3% increase in taxes to property owners if they had not done so. They have adopted the rollback rate for several years in a row.
This is what happens with citizens get active and let the local governments know they do NOT support these tax hikes. Way to go Bartow Freedom Coalition!
The Bartow GOP is joining the fight to oppose higher taxes…see below
Cartersville City and City Schools STILL want to Raise Taxes
Tomorrow night, the Cartersville City and City Schools will meet to proposed increased taxes.
Come testify for at the public meeting tomorrow and let the city and the school board know that you want the rollback rate, just like Adairsville, Euharlee and Bartow County Government did.
Public meeting is a Third floor of City Hall on 10 North Public Square as follows:
8/17 8 am and 7 pm (note, same meeting time/location given for both City of Cartersville and Cartersville City schools, even though they are different entities. Make sure you testify to each entity separately and are given equal time for each).
Cartersville Schools proposes raising taxes by 32% or $24.5 million, compared to the previous years increase of $19.1 million. It is hard to understand why they need to plan to spend over $86 million when the detailed budget provided from the City Schools to this blog indicate total spending of $55 million (with what appears to be no additional staff). Perhaps it is because their proposed budget plan would actually put an additional $9 million in the bank for the school board for a total of $26 million in reserves. Of course, it appears that the school board doesn’t care how much money has to come OUT of the bank accounts of citizens to give them a fat reserve fund.
The city schools did tentatively approve a millage rate of 13.5 (rather than 13.906) on 8/14 this week, however this is still a massive tax increase. They did this before having the final public hearings which are scheduled tomorrow 8/17 (see above).
The City of Cartersville itself will ask for a 21% tax hike of $1.1 million. This seems unnecessary given the overall $217 million budget of the city. In fact large revenues are generated by utility fees, which themselves are going up another 2%!
In addition. the city has collected and EXTRA $9.2 million in revenue OVER BUDGET! (See page 11 of the city budget). Yet they want to raise property tax collections another $1.1 million? This is just money in the bank….for them, not the taxpayers.
So come testify for at the public meeting tomorrow and let the city and the school board know that you want the rollback rate, just like Adairsville, Euharlee and Bartow County Government did.
Public meeting is a Third floor of City Hall on 10 North Public Square as follows:
8/17 8 am and 7 pm (note, same meeting time/location given for both City of Cartersville and Cartersville City schools, even though they are different entities. Make sure you testify to each entity separately and are given equal time for each)
Bartow School Board and Emerson Raise Taxes.
Both the Bartow School Board and the city of Emerson raised taxes by about 15-16% on Monday night. At the School Board meeting, many passionate citizens spoke, eah against the tax hike and none for it. There was no justification offered by the Board. The lone dissenting vote remained Board Member Darla Williams.
Bartow Republican Party Joins the Fight.
The Bartow GOP today publicly called for Bartow county local governments to stop raising taxes. They thanked the City of Euharlee, Adairsville and Bartow County for adopting the rollback rate. They called for citizens to testify. See details above about testifying at the Cartersville City Public Hearings tomorrow, 8/17 at 8 am and 7 pm.
Bartow GOP chair Dee Anne Wyse offered: “Local citizens do not have the luxury of merely voting to approve a higher paycheck for themselves. They are grappling with inflation from Bidenomics, facing increased food and gas prices, higher interest rates, and soaring housing prices." The press release went out locally to media and also is present on Facebook.
The Bartow GOP Chair Dee Anne Wyse also invited people to thier monthly meetings: “Citizens eager to support the Bartow Republican Party's drive for lower taxes, smaller government, and more freedom are invited to join the party on the fourth Saturday of every month at 9 am for breakfast at Sixes Tavern, 650 Henderson Drive, Cartersville, Georgia.
(For full disclosure, the author of this blog post serves as the Assistant Treasurer of the Bartow Republican Party, but all statement here are my own and not necessarily those of the Party. Especially typos!).
