Fulton County commissioners unanimously shot down a tax hike Wednesday, declaring they heard zero support from residents for raising the property rate 5 percent to help make up a budget shortfall.
The tax for county services will stay at 10.281 mills, which is about $720 on a $250,000 home with a homestead exemption. The proposed increase would have translated to an extra $36 in tax on that same house, and it would have affected all Fulton taxpayers, from Palmetto to Milton.
The countywide rate hasn't risen in 21 years. While finance managers have warned it will take drastic cuts to services such as libraries and arts programs to balance the books this year, Chairman John Eaves said the government has room to tighten.
"I think we're doing a noble job," Eaves said, "and I think our staff has done a noble job managing the resources that we have."
Though it wouldn't have been a huge rate increase compared to what other counties have done, the plan stirred a firestorm of opposition. Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties have all raised their tax rates in the wake of the real estate collapse, by margins ranging from 16 to 26 percent.
Since announcing they would consider a 0.51-mill increase last month, Fulton commissioners have faced an onslaught of more than six dozen e-mails urging them not to raise taxes. One came from Buckhead resident David Beale, who spoke out at Wednesday's meeting.
The proposed rate increase would have upped his tax bill by about $75. Beale said it could be lowered if the government would trim costs.
"The real problem is, no one's doing what I'm having to do as an individual," he said.
Prompted by the Buckhead-based Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation's anti-tax campaign, most of the e-mails cited the cost-cutting recommendations of three committees in 2006 and 2008. Two were blue ribbon committees formed by the county and another was a state legislative panel.
County officials have said those recommendations, made in reaction to Sandy Springs and three other cities forming and reducing the county's scope of power, were either impractical, have already been adopted or require state approval.
Also speaking out Wednesday was taxpayers foundation Executive Director Barbara Payne, who likened Fulton County to the Titanic and a tax hike to the iceberg. The proposed creation of a new Milton County would be the fatal collision, she said.
Republican legislators from north Fulton, accusing the county government of funneling their taxes to the Southside while ignoring the needs of their constituents, have long expressed a desire to break off into their own county, which would shift much of the tax burden to north Atlanta.
South Fulton Commissioner Bill Edwards said cuts should come from Grady Memorial Hospital, which is getting about $52 million from the county in this year's budget. He said he couldn't vote for a tax rate increase because of all the money given to the hospital in recent years, despite contract disputes.
The county withheld $3.9 million from Grady in 2011, $9.9 million in 2010 and more than $4 million in 2009. But each time, the commission wound up paying the money anyway, which Edwards opposed.
"We've done a lot for Grady hospital," he said. "Now it's time to do something for ourselves."
County Manager Zachary Williams told commissioners last month that the the new rate would have generated an estimated $17 million. Even then, he said, commissioners would have needed to find another $30 million in cuts.
As planned, commissioners did vote to raise unicorporated south Fulton's special millage rate for city-type services, such as police, fire protection, parks and planning, by 1.5 mills. Edwards has assured residents they won't pay more, though, because of declining home values, which are the key multiplier on tax bills.
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