Badie on taxes: How much is just right?

By Rick Badie

Gwinnett taxpayers raised up, shouted and, in some instances, demanded that their county government shelve talk of raising property taxes to balance the 2009 budget.

At May public hearings, hundreds of residents turned out to express disdain with Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charles Bannister and his lieutenants for proposing a property tax increase to prop up the $1.7 billion 2009 budget.

Naturally, no one supported the government’s answer to the budget crisis: more taxes. Their uproar proved successful. Commissioners backed down and authorized county departments to instead make cuts. Residents declared victory and called representative democracy a sweet thing.

But this week, we learned the (ongoing) budget reductions may cut deeper and hurt more than many realized.

We learned as much when someone leaked a county memo that outlined cuts to the media. The proposal calls for $225 million in cuts through 2014.

County officials are looking at cuts for Gwinnett’s premium services — parks, police and libraries. Major capital projects scheduled over the next four years would be deferred, including seven fire and EMS stations, two police precincts and at least five parks. And the new $7.4 million Hamilton Mill Library, set to open early next year, won’t.

In an online letter to residents, Bannister didn’t mince words about the effect the cutbacks will register for decades to come. “As citizens, you will see the result of these decisions in a variety of ways, ranging from noticeable cutbacks in park maintenance to longer fire and EMS response times, as departments attempt to service a still-growing population with a static or reduced workforce.”

Much can be said about this predicament so many governments face: that Gwinnett leaders should have predicted some aspects of the economic downturn and been better prepared. If nothing else, that the commissioners and county staff should have expected the rosy economic days to grow thorns that required trimming, some belt-tightening, a Plan B. Foresight.

It’s easy to rap government as inefficient, cumbersome, out of touch and quick on the draw to spend and tax. Such concerns hold water, and Gwinnett officials aren’t immune with their questionable land buys and failed garbage-collection plan.

This week, I’ve received e-mails and had conversations with Gwinnett residents who say the county may be slashing services to punish its people. Some have a name for it: “blackmail.”

Others say it’s a trial balloon sent up to test residents, and alarm them. The county wants them to rethink their no-tax stand.

Wrote Autumn Yatabe of Lawrenceville: “So the homeowners of Gwinnett raise a stink about our property taxes being raised, then all of a sudden we have shorter library hours, layoffs in the library system (an award-winning library system at that), less 911 response, threats of less police and fire protection ... and hiring freezes.”

My sense is that Gwinnett has invested too much of its resources in services like parks and police to let them simply slide to the dogs. The proposal to cut premium services isn’t some passive-aggressive ploy to get back at residents. It’s real.

The tax hike that residents shouted down would have increased county property taxes by 25 percent to 30 percent. That would have been a spike of about $180 a year on a $200,000 home.

So I ask: Just what magical amount of taxes are you willing to pay to maintain, and build upon, what the county offers?

To keep libraries open on Sundays; police and fire at the ready; manicured and abundant parks?

Perhaps in his letter to Gwinnettians, Bannister should have posed that question.

Rick Badie, an Opinion columnist, is based in Gwinnett. Reach him at rbadie@ajc.com or 770-263-3875.