Property Assessment Appeal Deadline

It’s that time of the year again.  Spring has sprung.  Every car bears a coat of yellow pollen.  And the DeKalb County Board of Tax Assessors has sent out property assessment change notices.

Not everyone received a property assessment change this year.  However, for those of us who have been reassessed, the increases are quite shocking.  Several constituents have e-mailed me about their reassessment notices.  Here’s an example:  “I just received a notice from DeKalb County with a $70,000 property assessment increase!!!  I filed the form to freeze the value last year and was told that it had been received.  Was the law repealed?  What happened?  Please help ASAP!”

Evan and I received a $44,300 assessment increase this year, which is 15% of the assessed value of our home on Granger Drive.

The headlines tell a different story.  “Atlanta home prices fall 4.8 percent” in 2007, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  “Atlanta home values drop sharply since last summer,” says Creative Loafing.

These artificial, unjustifiable assessment increases are the county government’s and school system’s way of increasing your property taxes without actually holding a public vote of the county commission or school board to increase your property taxes.  They are back-door tax increases.  Worse yet, it doesn’t matter how the real estate market is doing, which is outrageous.

The first step toward fighting back was passing the county property tax assessment freeze back in 2006, which freezes your property assessment for the purposes of calculating the county government’s portion of your property tax bill.  I am proud to have actively supported this measure.  Without my help in passing the property tax assessment freeze, it would not have happened.  The property tax assessment freeze only affects the approximately 25% of property taxes that are levied for use by the county government, which explains why the county continues to increase property assessments year after year.

Another important thing you can do to fight back is to exercise your right to appeal your reassessment.  That is the purpose of this message, to remind you about this right.  You can find information on how to appeal your property assessment increase on the DeKalb County Property Appraisal Department’s website (click for link).  Your letter of appeal must be postmarked no later than this Monday, May 12.

It’s All About Priorities

DeKalb County’s police force is woefully understaffed and underpaid.  Currently, DeKalb has 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents.  The national average is 2.7 officers per 1,000 residents.

As a result of DeKalb’s inadequately staffed police department, wait times for an officer to arrive at the scene of an incident that is not a dire emergency often can exceed 30 minutes.

Commissioners Burrell Ellis, Elaine Boyer, Jeff Rader, and Kathie Gannon recently sponsored a sensible proposal to boost pay for sworn officers by 8% and add 127 new officers to the DeKalb County Police Department.  Their proposal would be funded by trimming non-public safety functions of the county government by 1.25%.

Commissioners Larry Johnson, Lee May, and Connie Stokes voted against that proposal, saying they favored a property tax increase by way of a millage rate hike in order to fund the police positions and pay raises.

The Ellis-Boyer-Rader-Gannon proposal prevailed on a 4-3 vote.  However, CEO Vernon Jones vetoed it, claiming that he was carrying out “the will of the people” in supporting the Johnson-May-Stokes proposal for a property tax increase.

The will of the people???  On what planet?

As Commissioner Boyer points out:  “Since Jones became CEO, the county’s budget has grown more than 54 percent while the county’s population has grown about 29 percent.”  Moreover, a recent audit of county contracting practices uncovered a troubling pattern of structuring no-bid contracts in amounts just below the competitive bidding threshold to the same vendors for the same services over and over and over again.  As a result, our county government has paid millions of dollars to vendors in violation of competitive bidding safeguards.

An attempt to override the CEO’s veto could occur as early as this Tuesday’s county commission meeting.  In order to override the CEO’s veto, five votes are required.  To reach five votes, one additional vote is needed from among Commissioners Johnson, May, and Stokes.

Please call or e-mail these commissioners today.  Their contact information is as follows:

Commissioner Larry Johnson, District 3

larryjohnson@co.dekalb.ga.us, 404-371-2425

Commissioner Lee May, District 5

lmay@co.dekalb.ga.us, 404-371-4745

Commissioner Connie Stokes, District 7

conniestokes@co.dekalb.ga.us, 404-371-3053

County spending has grown in excess of the rate of population growth plus inflation.  Meanwhile, important areas such as public safety have not kept pace.  The Ellis-Boyer-Rader-Gannon plan would rein in the county budget while setting the right priorities for our community.

Where I Stand on Dunwoody, and Why

Senate Bill 82, the legislation to create the new City of Dunwoody, will come up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives today.

While I don’t represent any areas inside the proposed City of Dunwoody, I do represent neighborhoods around Murphey Candler Park, Harts Mill Road, and Silver Lake, just south of I-285 and the proposed city.  In fact, I live in this area.  Some of my constituents are very supportive of cityhood, and some are very opposed.  Most don’t feel strongly either way.

The purpose of this column is to discuss my position on Dunwoody cityhood.  Before I do that, however, it is necessary to dispel a rumor that is floating around the unincorporated community south of Dunwoody.  This rumor claims that, if Dunwoody becomes a city, homeowners in unincorporated DeKalb County will lose our homestead exemption from the Homestead Option Sales Tax (HOST), which serves to reduce our property tax bills.

That is not the case.  The rumor concerns legislation which passed the General Assembly last year aimed at allowing DeKalb’s cities such as Chamblee, Doraville, Decatur, and a new Dunwoody to share in the 20 percent of total HOST revenues that are allocated for infrastructure improvements.  The other 80 percent of total HOST revenues are the funds used to provide homestead exemptions in both the unincorporated and city portions of DeKalb County.

All consumers in DeKalb County, including those who shop outside and inside of DeKalb’s cities, pay the HOST penny sales tax on all taxable goods.  All homeowners in DeKalb County, including those who live outside and inside of DeKalb’s cities, receive a homestead exemption from the 80 percent of HOST that is used for property tax reduction.  However, DeKalb’s cities do not share in the 20 percent of HOST that is used for infrastructure.  City residents subsidize infrastructure projects in the unincorporated areas and receive no benefit from this 20 percent.

Simply put, last year’s legislation seeks to allow residents of DeKalb’s cities to receive their fair share of this 20 percent.  Will that legislation work?  It might not.  The original 1997 legislation that created HOST created it “for county purposes.”  The referendum that approved HOST also contained the limiting language “for county purposes.”  DeKalb County has vowed to file a lawsuit to prevent a new City of Dunwoody from sharing in HOST’s 20 percent infrastructure component.  That lawsuit, however, will not affect the 80 percent of HOST that is used for property tax reduction.  We will continue to receive our full HOST homestead exemption.

What makes me confident of that?  The 20 percent of HOST that is used for infrastructure already is the subject of litigation between DeKalb County and DeKalb’s existing cities.  While that lawsuit rages on, DeKalb homeowners continue to receive the full HOST exemption.

With respect to the upcoming House vote on the City of Dunwoody, I will vote yes.  Local citizens should be able to determine how they are governed at the local level for local services.  That is a principle in which I firmly believe, and I remain committed to it.

Some DeKalb residents and elected officials have objected to the inclusion of the DeKalb portion of the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts (PCID) north of I-285 in a new City of Dunwoody.  I have yet to hear a compelling argument as to how PCID north of 285 isn’t located in “Dunwoody.”  It is in Dunwoody, just as surely as the Sembler development adjacent to Oglethorpe University is in Brookhaven and Emory Village is in Druid Hills.  The Dunwoody Homeowners’ Association fights all the zoning battles in this part of PCID.

I actively opposed city limits proposed last year that would have brought the City of Dunwoody slightly south of I-285 to include the Perimeter Summit office complex, where the former HP tower is located.  That complex, which comprises the southernmost portion of PCID, is not in Dunwoody.  It is within the boundaries of the Ashford Alliance Community Association.  The proposed City of Dunwoody boundary was restored back to 285.

Our county commissioners work very hard and are good public servants.  Nevertheless, it is clear that DeKalb County suffers from what I call a “scale of representation” problem.  Each of the five regular district commissioners represents approximately 148,000 people.  That’s more than three times the size of my State House district, which stretches from I-285 all the way south to Toco Hills.  The two super district commissioners each represent approximately 370,000 people.  That’s more than eight times the size of my State House district.  The CEO, who controls the day-to-day administration of “local” services, represents all 740,000 DeKalb residents.

The vast majority of the DeKalb legislative delegation remains unwilling to reform the current DeKalb governance structure.  If local citizens in any part of DeKalb County want something different, and wish to form a city (or hopefully someday, a township) to choose truly “local” representatives who live in or near their neighborhoods, I am unwilling to tell them no.

A version of this post was published in the March 18 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.

A TAD More Than We Bargained For

Tax allocation districts, or TADs for short, have become a popular infrastructure financing mechanism for Georgia’s county and city governments.

A TAD relies on the annual property tax increases which result from year-to-year increases in assessed property values.  These annual property tax increases from properties located inside a TAD are captured and applied to infrastructure improvements such as roads, sidewalks, sewer lines, and parks within the boundaries of the TAD.

Originally, TADs were used as an incentive to attract developers to redevelop blighted or economically distressed areas.  Such property does not have much value in the first place.  Thus, the county or city gives up some of the early increases in tax revenues to help improve blighted or economically distressed areas and attract development into these areas.  The benefit is that the county or city receives significantly improved tax revenues later, after the blighted or economically distressed areas have been improved and property values have increased.  Atlantic Station and the BeltLine are examples.

Some local governments have gone hog wild with TADs, using them in areas that are not blighted or economically distressed, and using them to subsidize new development where new development would occur anyway.  Personally, I believe that the North Druid Hills and Briarcliff TAD, an area where the median home sale price is greater than $410,000, falls into this category.

Another problem with a tax allocation district is that, if the board of education consents, the annual increases in school property taxes that result from year-to-year increases in assessed property values can be applied to infrastructure improvements inside the TAD.

School taxes are paid for educational purposes, and are not paid to subsidize new infrastructure and development projects, however meritorious these projects might be.  If not used for educational purposes, there is a compelling argument that school taxes should not be collected in the first place.  County and city governments already receive their share of our tax dollars to fund infrastructure improvements, after all.

In a unanimous decision handed down last month, the Georgia Supreme Court agreed.  The Court found that the use of education taxes for TAD infrastructure projects violates the Educational Purpose Clause of the Georgia Constitution, which provides as follows:  “School tax funds shall be expended only for the support and maintenance of public schools, public vocational-technical schools, public education, and activities necessary and incidental thereto, including school lunch purposes.”

I believe the Supreme Court got it right.  However, efforts are afoot in this year’s General Assembly to overturn this decision of the Supreme Court by amending the Georgia Constitution.  I do not support these efforts, and have co-sponsored House Bill 1215 to remove all references to education taxes from the law that created TADs.

Taxpayers deserve truth in taxation.  We deserve to know our school taxes will be used for educational purposes.  Otherwise, we deserve our money back.

A version of this post was published in the February 27 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.

A Line in the Sand: No to Defoor

Perimeter Summit, where the former HP office tower is located, and the office buildings on the eastern side of Ashford Dunwoody Road across from Perimeter Summit, constitute the southern boundary of Perimeter Center. Everything south of there is the strictly residential North Brookhaven-Murphey Candler-Ashford Alliance enclave many residents of our community, including me, call home. Or so we thought.

Franco Defoor Properties has purchased six parcels of residential property at the entrance to the Oak Forest subdivision, located at Ashford Dunwoody Road and Oak Forest Drive. They intend to build an assisted living facility and an office building. They have applied to the county for rezoning of these parcels from single-family residential to office-industrial, a type of zoning that is prevalent in Perimeter Center.

At a recent meeting hosted by the Ashford Alliance, I was appalled at the dismissive tone of the developer’s lawyer toward the concerns of the community. He talked at one point about the residential land uses along Ashford Dunwoody Road needing to be upgraded. At another point, he discussed how these new large-scale development projects would be a much-needed “step down” between Perimeter Center to the north and the residential neighborhoods to the south.

I stand with the residents and neighborhoods in our community that have contacted me in opposition to the effort by Defoor Properties to push the boundary of Perimeter Center further south along Ashford Dunwoody Road. Once that boundary between commercial and residential uses moves south, another developer surely will come along wanting to move the line southward yet again.

It is time the residential neighborhoods of the Murphey Candler area demand and receive the respect we deserve. Young families are moving in. New construction is sprouting up here and there. The area is doing very well as a residential community.

Furthermore, for residents of Oak Forest, the supersized Defoor projects simply are not appropriate for the entrance to their neighborhood.

DeKalb County Commissioners Elaine Boyer and Kathie Gannon ultimately will decide whether or not this rezoning is approved. Please contact them via phone or e-mail and let them know what you think. You can find their contact information at www.co.dekalb.ga.us. Also, please consider attending the various zoning meetings that will occur during the next couple months.

Whether our residential community remains residential hangs in the balance. Perhaps the types of “infill” cluster homes and townhomes that have popped up along Chamblee Dunwoody Road and Harts Mill Road in recent years would be appropriate for this Ashford Dunwoody location. What Defoor has proposed clearly is not appropriate.

It’s time to draw a line in the sand on Ashford Dunwoody Road.

A version of this post was published in the February 20 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.

Time for Grady to Take Its Medicine

Grady Hospital is the only Level 1 trauma center in North Georgia.  If seriously injured in a severe automobile accident, Grady is where you’d likely be treated.  It is the top medical facility for treating indigent patients in Metro Atlanta, and thus relieves a burden that otherwise would be fully borne by the emergency rooms of local hospitals such as Northside, St. Joseph’s, and Piedmont.  Grady also is a teaching hospital that trains one out of every four doctors in Georgia.

From all of this, one thing is clear:  We cannot afford for Grady Hospital to close.  Its major role in the health of our region would be impossible to replace.  Yet, Grady faces an alarming and deepening financial shortfall amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.  The hospital is on life support, and major decisions will need to be made during this year’s legislative session to help save Grady from its financial coma.

The hospital is operated by the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, which has a governing board comprised of political appointees of the Fulton and DeKalb County governments.  Given that a substantial proportion of Grady’s patients are uninsured or on Medicaid, it is true that Grady’s current financial situation isn’t entirely the fault of its governing board.  However, it’s also true this political board has a history of gross mismanagement and poor fiscal oversight, and now is giving off erratic signals about whether it will take the steps necessary to save Grady.

What’s the most important step needed to save Grady?  A task force composed of representatives of Atlanta’s business community and sponsored by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce hit that nail squarely on the head:  “Like every other urban hospital authority in Georgia has done, Grady must restructure to take advantage of money-generating services and to remove the politics from the day to day management and operations of the hospital.”

This change in the management of Grady would be accomplished by creating a non-profit 501(c)(3) board comprised primarily of business leaders and medical professionals.  Of course, in order for that to happen, the current political board of the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority would have to approve the new board and hand over control of the hospital.

Fulton and DeKalb political types rarely recede quietly into the night.  Thus far, the political Grady board has only been willing to approve a new professional governance structure with caveats and strings attached.  To date, a new non-profit board has not been appointed.

If the Grady board and its political bosses in Fulton and DeKalb Counties fail to get the job done by the end of February, it will become imperative that the General Assembly take action to force the necessary and overdue governance changes before our 40-day legislative session draws to a close.

I have resolved to be a part of that effort.  I also will be working with State Senator David Shafer on his two initiatives to create a legislative oversight committee to review Grady’s finances on an ongoing basis, and to prohibit those with a financial interest in Grady from serving on the political Grady board, or on the new non-profit board, once it is created.

A couple of weeks ago, the CEO of Grady Hospital was abruptly booted from that position and replaced with DeKalb State Rep. Pam Stephenson — who also serves as chair of the Grady board — as interim CEO.  Stephenson became Grady’s fifth CEO since 2005.

I know how difficult it is for me to maintain my law practice while the General Assembly is in session, so I do question how a state legislator can serve as CEO and board chair of an ailing public hospital while the legislature is in session, and be effective in all three positions.  More importantly, however, there is an extraordinary conflict of interest between serving in an executive position in a public hospital and serving on the board that oversees the hospital.  When managing taxpayer funds, you cannot be both the overseer and the overseen.

It is time to inject the stability into Grady Hospital that a new, non-profit, professional governing board would provide.  The state of our health system in Metro Atlanta truly does depend on it.

A version of this column was published in the February 6 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.

Vote Tuesday!

This Tuesday, February 5, is Georgia’s Presidential Preference Primary.  A whopping 24 states coast-to-coast will hold primaries and caucuses to help select each party’s presidential nominee.  Georgia is one of these “Super Tuesday” states.

Your regular voting location will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.  I hope to see you at the polls!

DeKalb’s Costly Shenanigans Should Be A Crime

Audit reports aren’t what I would call “pleasure reading,” but they are necessary reading for elected officials like me who care about the way your tax dollars are spent.  You can learn a lot from an audit report.  For example, consider this passage from a June 25, 2007 KPMG audit report on the spending practices of the DeKalb County Government:

“We reviewed the purchasing and contracting procedures relative to Information System (IS) consulting services.  We noted that there were numerous purchases that were required to be competitively bid in accordance with the County’s purchasing policy, that were not bid.  The County’s policy states that purchases in excess of $50,000 should be competitively bid except if there is a Georgia State Contract or Federal Contract covering such purchase.  The County’s Purchasing and IS Department did not solicit competitive bids on several purchases in excess of $50,000 when there were no applicable Georgia State or Federal Contracts.  In addition, the County’s purchasing policy requires the Board of Commissioners’ approval when a total contract exceeds $100,000.  Relative to the IS Department’s use of consulting services, on numerous occasions no such Board of Commissioners approved contracts could be located.”

That’s a mouthful, but here is what it means in plain English:  There is a state law that requires the DeKalb County Government to perform a competitive bidding process whenever the value of goods or services it is seeking to obtain exceeds $50,000, and to obtain approval by majority vote of the county commission whenever the value of goods or services it is seeking to obtain exceeds $100,000.  For certain technology consulting contracts, the county administration has been doing neither.

That’s bad news, but it gets worse.  DeKalb County officials, including the county’s highest ranking non-elected administrator, Richard Stogner, have been approving purchases in amounts like $49,000 — just below the competitive bidding threshold — to the same vendors for the same services over and over and over again.  These purchases are intentionally designed to skirt the competitive bidding and commission approval requirements.

In fact, county officials have paid a select group of vendors more than $22 million in flagrant violation of competitive bidding safeguards.  These safeguards are in place to ensure that taxpayers receive the best services at the lowest possible cost.  They are designed to thwart the practice of giving high-priced sweetheart deals to favored vendors.

I was astonished to learn that violating the competitive bidding and commission approval safeguards is not a crime.  That’s why I have drafted, introduced, and am planning to work toward passage of House Bill 922 during this year’s legislative session.  HB 922 will make this official misconduct a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine, jail time, or both.

The Audit Committee of the DeKalb County Commission, chaired by Commissioner Elaine Boyer, is investigating the failure by county administrators to comply with state competitive bidding laws.  As is the case with many things in our “strong CEO” county government, there is only so much our elected commissioners can do to rebuke county administrators who have run amok.  Thanks to HB 922, however, any future efforts to skirt competitive bidding safeguards can be prosecuted as a crime and appropriately handled as a fraud on the taxpayers.

A version of this post was published in the January 23 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.

Breaking News on School Sale Vote

Amidst news reports that the Sembler Company is scaling back its proposed project at the intersection of North Druid Hills and Briarcliff Roads, the DeKalb County Board of Education today voted unanimously against selling the 30 acres of school property on North Druid Hills Road to Sembler.

I know a substantial number of Toco Hills, Merry Hills, Sagamore Hills, and Oak Grove residents who worked very hard to communicate the community’s opposition to the school board members.  Good work.  This shows you can make a difference when you make your voice heard.

On a related note, this past week I conducted a telephone survey of registered voters in House District 80 who reside in the immediate vicinity of the proposed high-density, mixed-use projects at North Druid Hills and Briarcliff.  I thought you’d be interested to see what our neighbors are thinking.  Here are the results:

Do you support the high-density, mixed-use commercial and residential development projects that are proposed for the intersection of North Druid Hills and Briarcliff Roads?

Yes - 22% - 55

No - 66.5% - 167

Undecided or no opinion - 11.5% - 29

Would you support a decision by the DeKalb County Board of Education to sell the 30 acres of school property on North Druid Hills Road to the Sembler Company for redevelopment into a new high-density, mixed-use commercial and residential development project?

Yes - 22% - 55

No - 66.5% - 167

Undecided or no opinion - 11.5% - 29

Do you support the creation of a tax allocation district to use county and school property taxes from commercial properties in the local area to fund transportation infrastructure improvements at the intersection of North Druid Hills and Briarcliff Roads?

Yes - 24.5% - 61

No - 57% - 143

Undecided or no opinion - 18.5% - 47

New Year’s Diet for Bloated Budgets

Each year, the General Assembly is charged with setting a budget for our state government.  In fact, if we do nothing else during the annual legislative session, passing a budget is the one thing we absolutely must do.  It is mandated by the Georgia Constitution.

Georgia’s Fiscal Year 2008 budget exceeded $20 billion, and the FY 2009 budget we will consider during the legislative session that begins this Monday will be even larger.  These are your hard-earned tax dollars.

When budgeting for our households, we think about every penny we spend.  And that’s what the state government does with your tax dollars, right?

Wrong, at least until this year.

In the past, state budget-making has been governed by bureaucratic inertia.  Each department of the state government, through the Governor, submits an annual budget request to the General Assembly.  Previously, each department’s new annual request has been a carbon copy of the prior year’s budget, with some changes here and there that usually amount to nipping and tucking at the margins.  Consequently, the bulk of each department’s budget has been carried over from year to year to year.

This year, however, we will institute zero-based budgeting.  In a zero-based budgeting process, each department of the state government must come before the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, start their budget at zero, and justify every penny of taxpayer money the department is seeking to spend.  Inertia no longer will be the driving force behind the state budget.

Due to the magnitude of the state budget and the brevity of the 40-day legislative session, we can only require zero-based budgets for a couple of departments each year.  This year, it’s the Department of Revenue (DOR) and Department of Human Resources (DHR) that will be required to justify every penny in their budgets.  The departments will rotate from year to year so that every department in the state government must start at zero every few years.

Eliminate bloated budgets.  Demand results.  Justify every penny that is spent.  As stewards of your tax dollars, we owe you nothing less.

A version of this post was published in the January 9 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.