The state's highest-paid elected official won't take a pay cut, nor will he be forced to stop selling delinquent tax bills to private collections firms.
Two measures aimed at Fulton County Tax Commissioner Arthur Ferdinand died in the House late Thursday, along with a property taxpayers' rights bill pushed by Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock. The bill didn't reach the floor for a final vote on the last night of the legislative session.
"It's very, very unfortunate," Rogers said, "because the taxpayers of Georgia will suffer, but more specifically, those in Fulton County."
One section of Senate Bill 234 sought to stop Ferdinand from collecting personal fees from Atlanta, Sandy Springs and Johns Creek for handling their tax billing. Charging them $1 per parcel, Ferdinand supplemented his county salary to earn $347,000 last year.
Rogers also added a provision Thursday barring counties from selling tax liens to private companies. Ferdinand's office does that routinely to collect unpaid taxes.
Fulton County stood to lose a key mechanism for reaching a 95 percent tax collection rate each year, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars for libraries, the criminal justice system, social programs and other services for nearly 1 million people.
Vesta Holdings, the largest purchaser of Fulton's tax liens, stood to go out of business, and its lobbyists fought the measure.
In several articles last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described how property owners, because of failings in the system, didn't know they owed overdue taxes until their homes were in foreclosure and they owed thousands of dollars to settle.
Midtown Atlanta resident Michael Boykin said he thought his duplex had been merged from two parcels into one, so he didn't realize he still owed $6,000 in taxes for one half of the building. He said he didn't find out Vesta had a lien against the property until he tried to refinance.
He paid $7,500 to settle, but the lien remains.
"I'm very disappointed that it didn't pass," Boykin said of Rogers' bill, "because clearly I'm not the only person to be pulled through the wringer like this."
Robert Proctor, a lawyer representing Vesta and sister corporations, said people claiming they weren't notified of liens make up a small minority of Fulton taxpayers.
Ferdinand did not return messages seeking comment for this story. In a past interview, he said that if his office lost the ability to sell liens, his only option to collect delinquent taxes would be to foreclose.
Tax activist R.J. Morris, who worked with Rogers on the bill and plans to run against Ferdinand this year, blamed House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, for keeping the bill off the floor. Ralston said SB 234 died because it went through so many amendments so late in the process.
The Senate and House compromise didn't hit legislators' desks until 10:55 p.m., and Senate and House rules say it has to wait an hour before a vote can happen. That left five minutes before the close of the session.
"I think it was just a victim of the lateness of its arrival," Ralston said.
Staff writer Aaron Gould Sheinin contributed to this article.
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