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County: 'There
is no tax inequity'
Lenox: 'This does
not close the matter'
By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com
Fayette County finance director Emory McHugh uses the old saw about three
blind men trying to identify an elephant in describing the current difference
of opinion between the county and its cities over tax equity.
“The moral of the story is that without taking the time to get the
complete picture, one can arrive at the wrong conclusion,” McHugh
said in an introduction to a 27-page analysis mailed out to local city
officials last week.
After looking at the complete picture, McHugh said, “There is no
tax inequity. What the cities would like to believe is that they can do
a simple arithmetic function and arrive at the right answer, but when
you put this whole thing together, it’s not as simple as that,”
he added.
Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox begs to differ. “There’s an awful
lot of elephant by-product in that analysis,” he said.
Figuring out whether cities are receiving their fair share of services
for the taxes they pay “is pretty simple, really,” Lenox said.
Lenox uses his own elephant analogy. The ancient riddle is: “How
do you eat an elephant?” The answer is: “One bite at a time.”
“If you try to swallow the sucker whole, it’s impossible,”
said Lenox.
But he insists that by taking each small piece of the county and city
services and revenues and applying logic, “You can determine who
pays for it and who benefits from it.”
Fayette and its cities are in their second year of trying to determine
just that, following Tyrone Town Councilman Ronnie Cannon’s assertion
that the town’s residents pay $400,000 more in taxes than they receive
in services each year.
In earlier times, his assertion might not have gotten any attention, other
than in the newspapers, but a new state law requires that cities and counties
work out agreements on taxes and services and make sure that residents
are not taxed for services they don’t receive.
Analyses have been conducted by each city and the county, and by a consultant
hired to clear up the matter, and after all that the parties involved
may be farther apart than when they started.
County Commission Chairman Harold Bost, in a letter to city officials
accompanying McHugh’s analysis, suggests that the new analysis closes
the matter.
“Hopefully, we can now put this entire issue to rest and move forward
knowing we are being fair to all Fayette County taxpayers regardless of
where they live,” he said.
No way, says Lenox. “This does not close the matter,” he said.
As The Citizen went to press, he was penning his response to Bost’s
and McHugh’s letters, asking for more meetings.
McHugh’s analysis, he said, is “full of lapses in logic, factual
inconsistencies and inappropriate criticism of the cities’ logic.”
Lenox’s own analysis suggests that Peachtree City residents are shortchanged
$3.2 million in county services. That number may not be 100 percent right,
he admitted.
“The truth is probably somewhere below $3.2 million,” he said,
“but it’s obviously way above zero.”
He will prepare a detailed response to McHugh’s analysis and invite
Bost, McHugh and other interested parties to discuss both the analysis
and his response, he said.
“Hopefully, this gives [the cities] a little bit of food for thought,”
said McHugh.
“It’s full of elephant by-product and obfuscation,” said
Lenox.
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