Austell City Council raises property tax rates by 154%

The average fair market value of a home in Austell is about $300,000, Finance Director Rachel Yarbrough said. Based on that value, the average Austell homeowner with a homestead exemption would pay nearly $600 more in annual city taxes, or an additional $50 per month, according to the city.

Austell’s property tax rate of 3.25 mills was the lowest in Cobb County, city officials said. With a population of about 8,000, Austell is also the smallest city in Cobb County. A small portion of the city is in Douglas County.

Austell has an operating budget of about $12.7 million. Slightly more than half the city’s revenue comes from its natural gas utility, Yarbrough said. The city does not control the gas rates and revenue came in lower than expected last year, causing a $1.6 million shortfall that the city had to plug with reserve funds.

Federal COVID-19 relief and stimulus funding kept the city afloat from 2021 to 2023, Yarbrough said.

“Some of those expenses that we had that would have exposed this deficit were masked by that extra money from other sources,” she said. “Well, now we don’t have that.”

The tax rate has not changed much in the past 25 years, Mayor Ollie Clemons told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“To do what we can with the funding that we have, it’s just becoming increasingly more difficult,” he said. “It’s hard to live today on 25-years-ago money.”

Many of the factors that contributed to Austell’s financial struggles are specific to its history. But the city is also grappling with the same workforce shortages that plague local governments across the region as they compete with each other — and inflation — to offer more pay and benefits.

Austell employees were not given merit raises this year, and many have left for other cities, Clemons said. The city also has not been able to fund a downtown revitalization plan that residents largely supported, he said.

Councilwoman Meredith Adams, who is running for reelection this year, was the lone dissenter. She told the AJC she would not vote for any tax increases or raises for the mayor or city council for the next four years.

“We need to make a change with how our budgets are managed,” she said. “We don’t have a high-income city and this is going to be detrimental to many.”

Sandra Jerkins, widow of longtime former mayor Joe Jerkins, addressed the council from a wheelchair with supplemental oxygen. Her family has lived in the city for generations and both her grandfathers have streets named after them.

She took exception to suggestions or statements that Austell was in dire straits due to her late husband’s management.

“You’re overloading some departments,” she said. “You’re not budgeting things right.

“Each council member here, and you, Mr. Mayor, I’m asking for your resignation immediately.”

Other metro Atlanta governments are setting tax rates this summer while struggling with deteriorating infrastructure and uncertainty over federal funding.

Fulton County has proposed a 11.3% property tax rate increase. The county commission is also weighing a cost-saving proposal to exit the Westside Tax Allocation District, an underserved area of Atlanta to which the county has contributed more than $9 million annually.

Atlanta slightly decreased citywide property tax rates, but Mayor Andre Dickens has said an increase in the next four years is likely.

Cobb County has proposed to leave its countywide property tax rates unchanged.