Tag Archives: LOST

Slides: Lowndes County Budget Presentation 2023-05-31

Here are the slides presented at the Lowndes County Budget Work Session, May 31, 2023,

received in response to a LAKE open records request.

You’ll probably see them again at this morning’s
Budget Public Hearing.

Property taxes account for 61.26% of General Fund revenues,
followed by LOST (Local Option Sales Tax) at 28.07%.
SPLOST VIII and TSPLOST are Capital Projects Funds which are expected to get $26 million and $3.5 million in FY 2023.
There are other Capital Projects Funds, Enterprise Funds, Internal Service Funds, and Special Revenue Funds.
Adding them all up with the General Fund gets a total budget of $136,569,685 for FY 2023 and $148,189,088 for FY 2024.

Of General Fund Expenditures, 38.34% goes to Public Safety, i.e., Sheriff,
11.52 to the courts, for 49.86% or almost half.

The slides are

on the LAKE website in XML and PDF form.
Below they are in JPG form.

-jsq

Continue reading →

Videos: slides @ LCC Millage 2022-08-23

Update 2022-09-14:
Videos: Millage, tax assessment, 3 utilities, ZBOA, Juvenile Justice @ LCC 2022-08-23.

They rolled back the millage slightly.
Millage rates for Parks and Rec and Development Authority were unchanged,
also for the unincorporated county fire district.

Pie and Commissioners

As usual, no citizens showed up for the millage rate public hearing.
Gretchen was the only person there who was not a Commissioner or staff,
and since she is a Tax Assessor, I guess she’s staff, too, although
she was there for LAKE, taking these videos.

Two of the Lowndes County Commissioners also did not show up for that meeting
nor for the Regular Session that same evening.
But they voted to adopt the millage anyway.

Here’s

a LAKE video playlist: Continue reading →

Notice: Special called meeting about LOST @ LCC 2022-08-26

Notice appeared yesterday of a meeting at 8:30 AM this morning.
A very rudimentary agenda was provided.

LOST

Special Called Meeting

Friday, August 26, 2022

Date:
August 26, 2022

Time:
8:30 AM

Location:
Board of Commissioners Administration Building

Address:
327 N. Ashley Street

2nd Floor

Valdosta, GA 31601

The agenda: Continue reading →

Millage Rate Hearing w. new fire millage @ LCC 2021-08-24

With the new 2.5 mil fire millage on unincorporated Lowndes County,
property taxes in unincorporated Lowndes County will still be lower than in Valdosta.

The slides, presented by Finance Director Stephanie Black, were informative,
although somewhat hard to read on the screen behind the Commissioners.
They are not on the county’s website,
and also not in the board packet.

Commissioner Mark Wisenbaker asked one question, wanting to know what the total
millage would be for residents in the unincorpated parts of the county.
Answer: 13.1.

Nobody spoke for or against at the Millage Rate Hearing, so it took less than eleven minutes.

Slides, Finance, Fire millage, Commission

The Lowndes County Commission voted in its Regular Session 20 minutes later.

Here is the LAKE video of the Millage Public Hearing.
See also Continue reading →

Secret meeting of Lowndes County Commission and state reps @ LCC 2013-12-20

The VDT report doesn’t say when or where, and doesn’t say whether
Dexter Sharper (District 177) wasn’t invited or chose not to attend.

There’s nothing about this meeting in the online

agendas
or

calendar,
even though that calendar lists

Pictures with Santa at the Historical Courthouse (12/19/2013).

There is this undated

public notice with no agenda:

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will meet with members of
Lowndes County’s Legislative Delegation on Friday, December 20,
2013, at 4:00 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Conference Room located on
the 3rd floor of the Judicial-Administrative Complex, 327 North
Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia.

K. Paige Dukes, County Clerk

pdukes@lowndescounty.com 229-671-2400

Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT 22 December 2013,

Commissioners host local delegation,
oddly omitting the when and where and much of the why from
the traditional

who, what, when, where, and why of journalism.

The Lowndes County Commission hosted Continue reading →

Videos, AAUW Candidates’ Forum @ AAUW 2013-10-15

Water was a popular topic, as you can see in these
videos of the

Candidates’s Forum by AAUW.
Same location (VSU Continuing Education Building)
as the one

Chamber held,
but this time the audience got to ask questions.
Yes, Virginia, they do all live in their districts, and some of them have widely divergent views about what cities or school boards should do.

Local

AAUW President Diane Holliman gave a welcome, and then
Dr. Luke Fowler moderated.
Here’s

the list of qualified candidates.
Here’s

Matthew Woody’s writeup in the VDT.

Valdosta City Council District 2

John Hogan and Calvin Graham Sr. were present; Sandra J. Tooley was not.

John Hogan pointed out that a road issue could really be a drainage issue,
so it’s necessary to look at context.

Calvin Graham Sr.
said he was retired military, lived in the district, and had
been spending a lot of time volunteering.
He indicated the Continue reading →

OK LOST status quo –Valdosta City Council @ VCC 2013-10-17

Yes we’ll take the 2002 percentages

offered by Lowndes County, voted the
the Valdosta City Council this morning at a Special Called Meeting.

The vote result is from Council Tim Carroll, who says they will revisit the percentages
after the Georgia legislature does whatever it’s going to do about LOST in January.
Here’s

the notice of the meeting on Valdosta’s website:

Notice of a Special Called City Council Meeting

Posted Date: 10/16/2013

The Valdosta City Council has scheduled a Special Called City Council Meeting for Thursday, October 17, 2013 at 8:00 a.m. at City Hall, 216 East Central Avenue, Council Chambers. The purpose of this Special Called Council Meeting is to discuss the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST).

For more information, please contact Teresa S. Bolden, City Clerk, at 259-3503 or tbolden@valdostacity.com.

-jsq

Videos of Special LOST Lowndes County Commission Meeting @ LCC 2013-10-15

In a highly irregular 4 to 1 vote with the Chairman voting,
the Lowndes County Commission voted to stick with
58% for the county, 42% for the cities from
LOST,
the same as the county’s

original position
from

April 2012.

No real agenda was posted by the county,
so below I’ve made one up to match the videos.

Call to Order

and immediate adjourn to executive session
for attorney-client privileges.

County Manager Joe Pritchard shooed
the Commissioners,
the alleged County Attorney, the County Clerk,
the Finance Director, and one or two other staff into the back room.
Reconvene into open session

Chairman Bill Slaughter divulged the purpose of the meeting so they could
vote on it.
The decision was
58% of SPLOST for the county and 42% for the cities,
to be divided among the cities as they see fit.
The vote was 4 to 1.
Which is rather odd, since you can clearly hear Chairman Bill Slaughter voting ”
aye”
and raising his hand. Continue reading →

Lowndes County LOST like Hall @ LCC 2013-10-15

Gretchen reports
LOST was the topic at today’s

special called meeting of the Lowndes County Commission.
And yes, they went into executive session.
Rumor has it that it’s not

120 days to come to an agreement,
rather this week is the deadline.
That’s what seems to be happening over in Hall County.

Sarah Mueller wrote for Gainesville Times today,

Hall commissioners to consider new local option sales tax certificate,

Hall County Administrator Randy Knighton said the special called
commission meeting today at 4 p.m. at the Hall County Government
Center in Gainesville was in response to a suggestion from the
Association County Commissioners of Georgia. ACCG has talked with
the Department of Revenue and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.

“(ACCG) has advised us that each county who has been engaged
in the LOST arbitration proceedings submit a new LOST certificate to
the Revenue Department this week,” Knighton said.

Knighton declined Monday to say Continue reading →

County lost LOST; now has 120 days to negotiate with cities

So all our tax money the county spent on the

alleged county attorney
arguing
before the state Supreme Court was wasted.
The remaining law seems to say by 120 days from Monday
the cities and the county need to come to an agreement.

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday,

Lowndes LOST in limbo:
Supreme Court tosses key amendment,

In a ruling issued Monday, Oct. 7, the Supreme Court of Georgia
declared a 2010 amendment to the Local Option Sales Tax Act
unconstitutional, reasoning that the amendment would delegate a
legislative function of allocating tax proceeds to the judicial
branch of government, a violation of the Separation of Powers clause
of the Georgia Constitution.

For Lowndes County, the ruling effectively renders the lawsuit moot
that was filed by the five cities against the county in September
2012.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came in the case of Turner County vs. the
City of Ashburn over a dispute in splitting the proceeds from the
one cent sales tax, the same issue in the Lowndes lawsuit. By
declaring the portion unconstitutional that would allow a judge to
decide how to allocate the tax dollars between the entities, the
issue is now in limbo for several counties in Georgia.

You may recall that

former Chairman Ashley Paulk
wasn’t interested in discussing proposals from the cities,
and said from before

the LOST negotiations began
that he expected it to go to arbitration.

This was the same Chairman Ashley Paulk who put SPLOST VII on the ballot
a year early and

lost it.
I wonder how much input County Manager Joe Pritchard had into these two losing decisions?

At least SPLOST VI hasn’t expired yet
and there’s time for the voters to go again on

SPLOST VII in November.

What happens now with LOST? Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange