Franklin Co. BOC Approves Property Tax Hike

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

Franklin County gets the community support it was looking for in its plan to raise property taxes.

“The people I’ve talked with appreciate the work y’all have done” said local citizen Woody Woodward. “I’m real excited about the tax increase.”

Well, you don’t hear that very often when it comes to raising taxes, but that has been the general response from citizens in Franklin County over the County’s plan to raise the millage by 2.67 mils.

But local citizen Woody Woodward told the Franklin County Board of Commissioners Tuesday evening he believes the raising of the millage is a good thing. On a $100,000 house, that works out to about an extra $10 a month in property tax.

Woodward made his comments during the third and final public hearing on the County’s proposed millage increase. He told the board those he has spoken with are in favor of the increase.

“Everyone has said to me they really appreciate the hard work by Beth (Thomas, County Manager) and the headaches and heartaches,” Woodward said.

Franklin County’s fiscal 2016 budget is just over $13.2 million, up from the FY15 budget of $11.8 million.

County Manager Beth Thomas has said though that unless the millage was raised, the County would have a budget shortfall of $1.3 million in FY16.

Three public hearings were held but in all three only a handful of citizens showed up and most of the comments were in favor of the increase.

Tuesday night’s third public hearing lasted only about three minutes because Woodward was the only person to comment on the millage hike.

During their regular work session later, Commission chair Thomas Bridges called for the vote.

The Board voted 4 to 1 to increase the millage by the proposed 2.67 mils with Commissioner David Strickland voting against.

At their June work session, when the FY16 budget was passed, Strickland told the board he was against any sort of millage increase.

Strickland contended the County could use money from bonds still sitting in SPLOST IV funds to supplement the lack of reserve funds. Strickland said the County should also take out another bond to keep from raising the millage.

“I’ve spoken with a bank and if you’re at $1.74 and we’re at $1.95 and then come in be able to do things and then look at a tax anticipated note for next year on January 2 to do the same thing so we can let other people pay instead of going to the property owners because they always bail us out. The commissioners have always done what’s easy and that is to raise taxes on the property owners,” Strickland said.

However, County Manager Beth Thomas said at the time, if the County did that there would be no excess to pay that bond back.

Thomas said she has cut as much of the services as possible, but Strickland said the County could cut 5% across the board in every department, as well as salaries to avoid raising the millage.

Tuesday night, the board also approved the Board of Education’s millage rate of 18.618 mills and the Franklin County Industrial Building Authority millage of .25 mills.