Ott Won't Vote to Raise Property Taxes

For most of the last two decades, the third rail in Cobb County politics has been the millage rate. 

Touch it with the intention of increasing property taxes even in the slightest and political death very well might result. 

Few office holders, at least on the Cobb Board of Commissioners, have been curious enough to test that theory. 

They haven't had to, given Cobb's burgeoning tax coffers that have resulted in gradually reduced millage rates since 1996 (see table below).

But with a proposed millage rate increase up for a vote tonight, only East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott has taken a vow to maintain the status quo. 

That's not surprising, because he's been fairly consistent about that position during the last year as the commission sliced $51 million from the budget to address declining tax revenues.

His four other colleagues, including chairman Tim Lee, who suggested the millage hike, and Ott's fellow East Cobb representative, newly elected JoAnn Birrell, haven't indicated how they'll vote. 

Even North Cobb commissioner Helen Goreham, who suggested a tax hike needed to be considered in May after the commission balanced the budget by slashing county spending by 10 percent and issuing furloughs, has been mum recently. 

With $33 million more in deficits projected for fiscal year 2012, these commissioners are in a political spot their predecessors could not have imagined.

Ott, Birrell and Lee are all up for re-election in 2012. Lee's only announced primary opponent thus far, former commission chairman Bill Byrne, has said he opposes raising taxes.

Like all five commissioners, Birrell is a fiscally conservative Republican who vowed during her campaign to succeed Lee last year that she wanted to keep one of metro Atlanta's lowest millage rates that way. 

But she has been worried enough about the effects of budget cuts on public safety services to hold a on the subject last month.

And last week, she sent out a constituent e-mail on the proposed millage rate increase. 

In The Marietta Daily Journal's "Around Town" column today, "informed courthouse sources" project a 3-2 vote in favor of raising the millage rate, with Birrell or South Cobb commissioner Woody Thompson the possible swing votes. 

In the Cobb finance department's "budget book" that lays out the FY 2012 fiscal picture, a graphic illustrates how tax-conscious previous commissions have been, and why Cobb remains a low-tax haven. While other local governments were raising their millage rates before the recession, for the past 17 years Cobb was steadily reducing the property tax obligations of citizens: 

Lee's proposal would raise the millage rate by 17 percent, or 1.71 mills, costing a typical Cobb homeowner an average of $111 more a year for a home valued at $200,000.

As Lee told members of the East Cobb Civic Association last month, these are for the county. 

On Wednesday, Ott will speak to the influential civic group (7 p.m., East Cobb Government Center, 4400 Lower Roswell Road), certain to hear plenty of questions about what's next, no matter how the commission votes.