Cobb County commissioners unanimously approved a $496.7 million budget Monday night that’s 4.8% higher than last year’s spending plan, saying bigger tax bills will help cover salary increases for police officers, firefighters and other government employees.
Board members adopted a flat tax rate of $8.46 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The rate will effectively amount to a 5.4% property tax hike due to the boom in the home values.
Some residents questioned how Cobb officials could increase the budget and property taxes while the county is still recovering from the pandemic.
Quantina Scott has been asked to vacate her Marietta apartment because her landlord isn’t renewing her lease. She urged the board to wait until next year to impose the increases.
“I’m not understanding why are we raising taxes when the economy is not even back to being stable,” she said. “Businesses are struggling to get employees, people are still struggling trying to find housing.”
But commissioners justified the $23 million increase, saying it addresses much-needed capital improvements, staffing gaps and concerns about employee salaries.
The board voted 4-0 to adopt the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Commissioner Keli Gambrill was absent.
“What’s been happening is that we’ve been kicking the can down the road. And unfortunately now we’re on a dead end street and we just cannot kick it any further,” Commissioner Monique Sheffield said moments before the vote to approve the budget.
Pay scale adjustments for Cobb County’s public safety workers go into effect in March. Cobb officials approved the $5.7 million “step-and-pay” model in 2020, which will increase starting pay for police officers, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters from $41,615 to at least $46,000 to improve recruitment.
The county will also starting implementing a three-year plan to address a lack of separation between pay grades for the public safety agencies.
Other county employees will receive 3% wage increases. The budget also includes about $400,000 to hire a diversity and inclusion officer and beef up staffing in the elections office with three new full-time positions and two part-time elections specialists.
Cobb whittled its capital spending down to $2.2 million this fiscal year to brace for the pandemic’s financial toll. The county will restore its capital maintenance program for government facilities and plans to spend $5 million for vehicle replacements.
The county’s tax rate remains the same for the fourth consecutive year. But Cobb’s taxable digest of residential properties increased 5.5%, eclipsing $29 billion. That means the flat tax rate is higher than the rolled back rate of $8.03 per $1,000, which would’ve kept residents’ property taxes the same.
Many of Cobb’s revenues remain down, lingering effects from the pandemic. But the county anticipates it will collect $331.5 million in property taxes. That’s up 8.2% from the current fiscal year when Cobb County collected little more than $306 million.
County officials estimate a $51.60 property tax increase for homeowners whose residences have a market value of $325,000; and a $77.40 increase for those whose non-homesteaded properties are valued at $450,000.
Cobb County’s Finance Director Bill Volckmann said when property values rise, so do homestead exemptions for those properties. County homeowners are projected to get $884 million more in those exemptions for their primary residences next year, according to Cobb officials.
“Primary residences will not see an impact because of the homestead exemption,” Volckmann told commissioners.
One resident who’d already received her property tax bill said her home’s value went up more than $10,000, and her taxes were $12.48 more than last year.
Monica Delancy, an advocate for affordable housing, told commissioners there’s a “disconnect” between the county raising taxes while many residents are being evicted from their homes due to skyrocketing prices in the market for rental housing. She stood with a woman who she said lost her Section 8 housing voucher and had been “couch surfing” for four months.
Lisa Cupid, the board’s chairwoman, said changes in the budget are “meat and potatoes” adjustments to address needs that have been ignored for years.
“This is very hard because no one wants to increase their taxes. I don’t want to see my taxes increase,” she said. “But we are asking for modest adjustments to make sure we are doing the basic things. Nothing that we have asked for in this budget, I perceive, has been frivolous.”
