April 7, 2008
Dougherty County -- Iris Allison Hawthorne has lived in her Dougherty County home for almost two decades. "I've been living here for 18 years and been through two floods. And the first flood took away everything," said Hawthorne.
But now this business owner is flooded with bills. "It seems like every year my taxes are constantly going up higher and higher and the money is not coming in," said Hawthorne.
A property tax amendment that would have eliminated the car tag tax, and capped how high local governments can assess the values of businesses and homes did not pass during the final hours of state legislation Friday.
"I think they did a great job by doing that and I applaud everyone who voted. We need to collect our local taxes based on what we need. If we want to cut the milage rate than we can do that. Whatever we have to do to pay the bills, we can do that. We don't need to go through Atlanta for that," said Dougherty County Commissioner District 6, Jack Stone.
"If you are having to pay less and are able to keep more that matters. And clearly I think where it is prudent to do so, we should try and take any burden off our citizens," said Dougherty County Commissioner District 2, John Hayes.
"I want to know if we are going to do that will it benefit the way we are living here. Atlanta is not in Albany. You can not run Albany from Atlanta, because what is going on in Atlanta is not going on here," said Hawthorne.
For now Georgians can only hope to get relief from taxes in cuts made from their local government.
A resolution for a state constitutional amendment that would allow regions to vote themselves an extra one-cent sales tax to pay for transportation projects also did not pass.
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