DeKalb County / Dunwoody and other Municipal Millage Tax Rates - on the DeKalb agenda

Based on recent news being released by DeKalb County Commissioner, Nancy Jester in her recent newsletter and as reported in the Dunwoody Crier, it sounds like DeKalb County may be ready to announce that they are going to charge the cities different tax rates for General Operations. 

As you see in the chart above, the City of Dunwoody has one of the lowest tax rates in the County at a total of 39.327 mils. The City of Dunwoody has never raised the "city" mileage rate of 2.74 adopted at incorporation as those are the funds which pays for the Dunwoody Police and other city services like paving & parks.  As you see the unincorporated list towards the top, DeKalb Police Department and the special services for DeKalb is much greater than Dunwoody therefore if we were still in unincorporated DeKalb County our current total mileage rate would be 44.090 mils or somewhere in that ballpark.

I am opposed to the proposed change for an unequal cost of general operations to be passed to the incorporated cities and though I haven't seen the numbers or their justification, the proposal seems off but I am looking forward to seeing the matrix like above and their reasoning for differences.   DeKalb is meeting Tuesday to discuss this item and maybe this information will be released soon.

DeKalb also knows that Dunwoody and other municpalities have the the ability to form our own Fire Department and contract out for sanitation therefore once the level of service goes down to a specific level upseting the community and/or they raise the rates on these services whereby it would be cheaper for us to provide our own services - we may just do that.  

I am looking forward to seeing where this goes but also know that Commissioner Jester is fighting this budgetary fairness item on our behalf.   Thanks  John

Nancy Jester

Budget
The county's annual budget will be voted on by the board at the end of this month. At this point, I will be voting against the administration's proposed budget. I do not support the fact that the county portion of millage rates will increase for every city in District 1, while unincorporated DeKalb will have the same millage rate as last year. The driving factor behind these millage increases is the county's general fund which is proposed to increase by an additional point. I am not happy with the structure of this budget and the county knows my feelings regarding this point. My hope is that the cities will share my concerns by writing to my fellow Commissioners, the CEO, and the DeKalb Municipal Association (DMA).