Category Archives: Georgia

HB 170 would have a devastating effect on our community –Valdosta Board of Education

The Valdosta Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution against HB 170 last night and forwarded it to the local legislative delegation via email and on paper, according to Joy at the Valdosta School Superintendent’s office just now.

Not surprisingly, VBOE’s resolution looks a lot like the City of Valdosta’s resolution. Both were written before yesterday’s changes to HB 170, which still pit counties against cities.

The Lowndes County Board of Education unanimously passed a similar resolution also last night.

What will the Lowndes County Commission do tonight? And what will the Lowndes County Board of Education do Thursday?

Here’s the Rationale in the yesterday’s VBOE agenda:

HB170 has been introduced this legislative session. It proposes to remove the local tax on fuel and replace it with a tax at the distributor level which would be paid to the state. For Valdosta City Schools this would mean a reduction in revenue of approximately $1.8 million annually from ESPLOST. The total loss of revenue for the city and county governments and the city and county school districts would be approximately $12 million annually. If passed, this bill would have a devastating effect on our community.

And here’s the resolution: Continue reading →

HB 170: counties vs. cities? @ LCC 2015-02-10

Yesterday a Georgia House subcommittee did exactly what Valdosta urged it not to do about distributing HB 170 funds. Given that LMIG mismatch between cities and counties to replace the previous mismatch of forced double taxation on cities and counties, is the legislature trying to cause dissension between counties and their cities, or is it just that inept? We know Valdosta’s position. What will the Lowndes County Commission do?

Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson wrote to bill’s sponsor: Continue reading →

HB 170 voted out of subcommittee; what will Lowndes County Commission do? @ LCC 2015-02-06

How long will the Lowndes County government and ACCG wait to act, while the Georgia legislature moves on its stealth transportation tax hike for Atlanta that would defund local school boards and city and county governments? A House subcommittee has made some changes to the bill, but it would still force local governments to raise taxes, and it adds an unrelated repeal of an electric vehicle tax credit to its boondoggle for trucking companies and Atlanta. Do we want our local public schools to be defunded like wildlife programs were through the state’s wildlife license plate revenue tax taking? If not, now’s the time to lobby against HB 170, before the full House Transportation Committee meets Thursday. Yet there’s still nothing about HB 170 on the county’s agenda for this evening’s voting Regular Session.

Valdosta has already Continue reading →

$12 million loss to local Lowndes County governments –text of Valdosta resolution against HB 170

Local schools would lose $4 million annually and local governments overall $12 million annually, 300x389 Resolution, in Resolution against million tax local tax loss to HB 170., by City of Valdosta, 5 February 2015 because HB 170 would “re-allocate local sales tax funding from local governments to the state of Georgia”, resolved Valdosta’s Mayor and Council last Thursday. Plus HB 170 would effectively authorize “double taxation of municipal residents”, because both Lowndes County and Valdosta would have to raise property taxes, which would result in Valdosta’s citizens being taxed more twice (by both the county and the city). For how serious Valdosta considers this threat to its ability to provide services to local citizens, witness how fast this resolution got passed (within weeks after HB 170 was introduced into the legislature) compared to how long it took for Valdosta to pass a resolution against the Sabal Trail pipeline (about eighteen months).

Here’s the complete text of the Valdosta resolution that passed 5 Febuary 2015. See also Valdosta’s PR about this resolution, which contains links to the evidence, and Valdosta’s letter to the sponsor of the bill.

RESOLUTION NO. 2015-3

A RESOLUTION TO OPPOSE THE STATE OF GEORGIA’S
TRANSPORTATION FUNDING ACT OF 2015 Continue reading →

Valdosta writes to legislature against HB 170 transportation tax grab

Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll sent a message Saturday with an attached letter from City Manager Larry Hanson to the sponsor of HB 170, strongly opposing that stealth tax hike. This is in addition to the resolution the Valdosta City Council passed against HB 170.

Carroll’s cover letter:

All,

Attached is a message Mr. Hanson prepared and sent to Rep. [Jay] Roberts regarding the proposed State Transportation Funding legislation or HB 170. Rep. Roberts is the lead sponsor of this bill.

As many of you have already heard, the Valdosta City Council adopted a resolution Continue reading →

Valdosta resolution against GA HB 170 sales-to-excise transportation tax switch

While the Lowndes County Commission has no position, the City of Valdosta already voted to oppose the legislature’s HB 170 proposed stealth tax hike that would convert a local sales tax into a state excise tax, forcing local governments to raise property taxes.

Valdosta PR Resolution to Oppose the State of Georgia’s Transportation Funding Act of 2015,

Click here to view the Resolution to Oppose the State of Georgia’s Transportation Funding Act of 2015.

Click here to view the Local Sales Taxes Collected on Motor Fuel Sales by county.

The Valdosta Mayor and City Council unanimously approved Continue reading →

Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto Pipe Line to Savannah and Jacksonville

If you thought Sabal Trail was a one-off pipeline, think again. Kinder Morgan wants to build another pipeline conveniently past Elba Island LNG through Savannah and Jacksonville. Apparently it’s not actually for methane, but it’s still another fossil fuel boondoggle among many that local and state governments and NGOs need to proactively deal with instead of each type one by one.

Chip Harp, Valdosta Today, 9 February 2015, New Nat Gas Pipeline to Fuel Coast, Continue reading →

Videos: Hospital, transportation, water, incarceration, taxes, Internet, and military @ LCC 2015-02-06

Commission and staff followed up on safety on Val Del Road that John Page brought up in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard a month ago. Appointed board and agency openings: they have a list, but you can’t see it, for the Bad Dog Board or any other. The Chairman had “support” for a referendum to appoint Tax Assessors, although “this is not a vote”. About Internet access, County Manager Joe Pritchard discussed a map of a “skeletal framework” of city and county, VSU, SGMC, Georgia Military College, Wiregrass Technical College, “the outlying cities”, as well as the industrial parks, for DSL, cable modems, etc. This discussion has come a long way in the year since Chairman Bill Slaughter said “We have broadband”.

They seem to want the county to be Continue reading →

HB 59 to waive sovereign immunity in certain cases

Sue the state? You’ll lose, because of sovereign immunity, unless HB 59 passes. Then you might be able to sue GA-DNR for circumventing permiting in allowing construction on the Georgia Coast, or if it should approve a compressor station in Albany, or if it should issue any other permits for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

State agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR), can use “letters of permission” to do things like make alterations to Georgia’s coast, and anyone suing to stop it runs up against sovereign immunity unless the issuing agency has expressly waived it. Now that may change with HB 59, “State tort claims; waiver of sovereign immunity for declatory judgment or injunctive relief; provide”. It has six co-sponsors, including Jay Powell, District 171, Camilla, Mitchell County, GA.

Here’s the key part: Continue reading →

HB 170 to convert fuel sales tax to excise tax at local government expense @ LCC 2015-02-05

HB 170 is a stealth tax raise by the state that would force county and city governments to vote for higher local taxes. The Transportation Funding Act of 2015 is bad news according to every city councillor and county commissioner I’ve heard from.

Harrison Tillman estimated about $335,000 reduction in taxes to the county and a $12.6 million overall loss in revenue in his presentation yesterday morning to the Lowndes County Commission Annual Planning Meeting. Commissioner Demarcus Marshall and Chairman Bill Slaughter went to Atlanta to talk to the proposers of this bill, with little effect.

Here’s ACCG’s HB 170 writeup Tillman used, and Continue reading →