By a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, a Cobb public safety tax referendum proposal was approved by the Board of Commissioners.
That means their resolution will be submitted to the Georgia legislature, which must authorize a local referendum to take place. Cobb wants the referendum scheduled for November.
The referendum proposal would collect a permanent penny sales tax for public safety costs that county officials say would generate $130 million a year.
Cobb’s six cities would get $34 million of that revenue, and the county would get the remaining $96 million, which would fund all public safety functions except the Cobb Sheriff’s Office.
The sales tax revenue would be used for general operating expenses, including salaries and benefits, as well as capital costs, such as new vehicles and equipment.
The tax would be collected only if Cobb voters approved a referendum.
Cobb currently collects six cents on every dollar in sales taxes.
Voting against the resolution was District 2 commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb, who wanted the resolution to clarify what would happen with the left-over money in the general fund no longer being used for public safety purposes.
“There’s no discussion here of what happens to the millage in the general fund,” Ott said at a work session on Monday. “This is a tax increase otherwise.”
North Cobb commissioner Bob Weatherford, who is proposing the sales tax, said the board has the flexibility to roll back the property tax millage rate if it chooses.
That wasn’t enough of an assurance for Ott, who supports taking public safety spending out of the general fund but who reiterated his objections right before the vote.
District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb supported the resolution, citing the high priority of public safety. “We have to put our money where our mouth is.”
The resolution was opposed by Lance Lamberton of the Cobb Taxpayers Association, who claimed the county doesn’t have a revenue problem but “a spending problem.”
Another sales tax, he said, “will amount to a very large tax increase on our citizens.”
Also sounding off on the vote Tuesday was Tom Cheek, a civic activist who has announced he’s running against Birrell in the Republican primary for District 3 this year.
Cheek wrote on his Facebook page that “by using the false flag of ‘Public Safety’ and the false promise of ‘we will lower your property taxes,’ the BOC took a huge step away from accountability.”
The other opposing vote on the board was Lisa Cupid of South Cobb, who referenced the county’s current budget challenges, with a projected fiscal year 2019 deficit between $30 million and $55 million.
“It’s hard to get our arms around a big gaping hole that’s affecting how everything functions in the county now,” she said.
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