The Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to keep the countywide general fund property tax rate flat after last month’s proposal to increase it more than 11% caused an outcry.
Uncertainty remained over the costs the county must shoulder this year to comply with a federal consent decree that mandates improved conditions at the jail on Rice Street. But Chief Financial Officer Sharon Whitmore said about 10% of county positions were vacant during the first half of this year, leading to $54 million in unspent personnel costs the county can tap.
The revelation left some commissioners frustrated.
“We put the fear into the citizens about their taxes going up and them not being be able to pay their bills, and that wasn’t necessary,” Commissioner Dana Barrett said. “We need to do better.”
Commissioners voted 6-1 to hold the tax rate at 8.87 mills. One mill represents $1 of tax liability for each $1,000 of assessed property value. The rate has been the same since 2022.
About 100 residents spoke Wednesday against a tax rate increase. Some commissioners said they received hundreds of additional emails.
Commissioner Mo Ivory, who first proposed a 1-mill increase last month, was the lone dissenter. She continued to argue the increase was necessary, primarily citing the consent decree.
“A third-party independent monitor from the federal government is coming,” she said. “I’ll see you next August. We’ll have the same conversation again, but it won’t be 1 mill.”
Based on communications from the monitor and Sheriff Patrick Labat, commissioners cited about $100 million in costs related to the consent decree, but not all of it would be spent this year.
The consent decree is the biggest “budget pressure” facing Fulton County, said Whitmore, who tallied $5.4 million in related costs from January through early July, including facility maintenance fixes.
“There will be other costs that will be identified through the remainder of the year,” she said. “We just can’t quantify those right now.”
An analysis of the jail’s staffing should be finished next month, according to a Fulton County spokesperson. The largest cost this year for consent decree compliance would be increased staff, but the tax rate set Wednesday would only need to fund new hires through the last few months of the year, Whitmore said.
A security audit of the jail will also be conducted, she said.
Labat sued the county in June, accusing commissioners of imposing unnecessary restrictions on his spending. Some commissioners Wednesday countered that the jail needs improved management more than increased funding.
“The jail is not unfunded,” Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman said. “The jail has an operational issue. You cannot continue to throw good money after bad.”
Federal budget cuts have yet to play out at the county level. Whitmore said it remains unclear whether the county will need to continue any federally funded services without the funding.
Fulton County last week received a $5.1 million HIV elimination grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a slight increase over last year’s award.
Gwinnett County will vote later this month on keeping its tax rate flat. The federal budget and grant freezes have not impacted the county so far, a spokesperson said.
DeKalb County earlier this summer raised its countywide general and hospital tax rates by a combined total of 28%, but neutralized the increases for unincorporated residents by lowering other rates that pay for police, fire, roads, parks and bond debt. Because of a countywide sales tax that also offsets residential property taxes, the average household in unincorporated DeKalb will pay less than last year, county figures show.
DeKalb mainly increased its general fund tax rate to build reserves, which had fallen to less than one month of recurring expenses, spokesperson Quinn Hudson said.
“The uncertainty surrounding federal grant funds is one of the reasons for increasing the general fund reserves,” Hudson said.
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