{"id":12224,"date":"2015-02-10T05:55:30","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T10:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=12224"},"modified":"2015-02-10T10:40:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T15:40:20","slug":"hb-170-voted-out-of-subcommittee-what-will-lowndes-county-commission-do-lcc-2015-02-06","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/hb-170-voted-out-of-subcommittee-what-will-lowndes-county-commission-do-lcc-2015-02-06.html","title":{"rendered":"HB 170 voted out of subcommittee; what will Lowndes County Commission do? @ LCC 2015-02-06"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nHow long will the Lowndes County government and ACCG wait to act,\r\nwhile the Georgia legislature moves on\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nits stealth transportation\r\ntax hike for Atlanta<\/a> that would defund local school boards and city\r\nand county governments?\r\nA House subcommittee has made some changes to the bill,\r\nbut it would still force local governments to raise taxes,\r\nand it adds an unrelated repeal of an electric vehicle tax credit\r\nto its boondoggle for trucking companies and Atlanta.\r\nDo we want our local public schools to be defunded like\r\nwildlife programs were through the state’s wildlife license plate revenue\r\ntax taking?\r\nIf not, now’s the time to lobby against HB 170, before\r\nthe full House Transportation Committee meets Thursday.\r\nYet there’s still nothing about HB 170\r\non the county’s agenda<\/a> for this evening’s voting Regular Session.\r\n

\r\nValdosta has already\r\n\r\n passed a resolution<\/a> against HB 170,\r\npublished PR about that<\/a>,\r\nand\r\nwritten a letter to the sponsor of the bill<\/a>,\r\nspelling out that this is not any new tax money the legislature is\r\nallocating: it’s taking tax money away from local governments,\r\nso much that counties, cities, and school boards would be forced to\r\nraise local taxes: again, after just raising property taxes a few months ago.\r\n

\r\nAaron Gould Sheinin, AJC, 9 February 2015,\r\n\r\nTransportation bill passes first hurdle<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nA House subcommittee on Monday voted to advance a major\r\ntransportation funding bill to full committee, an important first\r\nstep for a complicated proposal.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Transportation subcommittee heard more than an hour of testmony,\r\nincluding concerns from Georgia’s cities and school districts before\r\nagreeing to send House Bill 170 forward. The full Transportation\r\nCommittee could hear the bill as early as Thursday.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe article admits that the bill’s supporters claim that it would\r\nraise “new” money actually means local governments would have to add\r\ntaxes:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLocal governments could add an additional 6 cents per gallon to replace lost revenue.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThursday morning the Lowndes County Commission at its annual retreat\r\n\r\nheard Harrison Tillman tell them that local governments<\/a>\r\nwould lose about $12.6 million overall, including $335,000 tax loss to the county government.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nHB 170 came up again Friday in the\r\n\r\nGoals discussion<\/a> of the retreat,\r\nwhen Chairman Bill Slaughter said he didn’t want to take a position\r\nuntil the final text of HB 170 was known.\r\nI’m no expert at state legislative processes, but isn’t the best time to \r\nlobby before<\/em> the final text is known so you can affect what the text is?\r\n

\r\nThere have been some changes to the bill<\/a>, but it’s still a tax taking\r\nby the state that would force local governments to do the actual tax hike.\r\nJon Richards, Peach Pundit, 9 February 2015,\r\n\r\nSubcommitee Moves Substitute Bill to Full Transportation Committee<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe Highway Regulations subcommittee of the House Transportation\r\nCommittee met this afternoon to consider another substitute to House\r\nBill 170, the Transportation Funding Act of 2015. Changes to the\r\nbill from its previous version include terminating the $5,000 tax\r\ncredit for electric vehicles, changing the way counties could charge\r\nexcise taxes to replace LOST revenue they will lose, and allowing\r\ncounty excise taxes to be used to repay transportation bond debt. No\r\nchanges were proposed to the 29.2 cent proposed state excise tax\r\nrate.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nTransportation Committee chairman Jay Roberts outlined the proposed\r\nchanges to a packed hearing room. Instead of allowing cities and\r\ncounties each to institute a three cent excise tax by a vote of\r\ntheir governing body, plus another three cents each if approved by\r\ncitizen referendum, the new proposal allows county commissioners the\r\nability to vote in a six cent countywide gasoline excise tax, which\r\nwould be split with the cities according to the existing Local\r\nMaintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) formula, which is based on\r\ncenterline miles of local roadway within the county or city.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSpeaking to reporters after the hearing, Chairman Roberts stated\r\nthat he thought this should ease concerns by counties and cities,\r\nnoting that a six cent excise tax plus additional LMIG funding from\r\nthe state, plus the ability to move transportation from a county’s\r\nexisting budget to the excise tax should make up for the loss of\r\nrevenue from a gasoline sales tax. And, Roberts stated his guiding\r\nprinciple that he was not going to allow sales tax on fuel not to be\r\nused for transportation purposes. On whether the proposed statewide\r\nexcise tax rate of 29.2 cents per gallon would hold Roberts said\r\nthat he was waiting on the fiscal note, which will describe the\r\namount of money the bill is expected to raise.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo, if the sponsor of this stealth tax hike boondoggle says\r\ngas taxes will only be used for transportation purposes,\r\ncan we trust that as much as we could assertions that\r\n\r\nwildlife license plate fees would go to wildlife programs<\/a>?\r\nThat one got\r\n\r\npartly fixed last year<\/a>,\r\nbut only after the damage had been done:\r\nlike many others, I no longer buy those license plates,\r\nand the originally intended fund recipients have effectively been defunded.\r\nDo we want that to happen to our public schools?\r\n

\r\nHow about a guiding principle that if you’re going to raise\r\nstate taxes you have the guts to actually raise state taxes\r\ninstead of forcing local governments to do your dirty work for you?\r\n

\r\nAnd how about a guiding principle of not sabotaging one of the few\r\nthings Georgia is good at,\r\nnamely\r\nbeing number one in electric car sales<\/a>?\r\n

\r\nKathleen Foody, AP, 9 February 2015,\r\n\r\nGa. transportation funding bill revised to calm critics<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLocal government agencies have joined some Senate Democrats and some\r\nconservative, anti-tax organizations in opposition to the package.\r\nGov. Nathan Deal, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker David\r\nRalston all have urged legislators to address Georgia’s\r\ntransportation needs this session, arguing that it is essential to\r\nthe state’s economic future.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMore like essential to more profits for trucking companies.\r\nIf the Governor were concerned about the state’s economic future,\r\nhe would have\r\n\r\nproduced a real passenger rail plan<\/a>\r\ninstead of GDOT ignoring citizen input about that.\r\nAnd he did nothing to change his predecessor’s\r\nrefusal to accept federal high speed rail funds<\/a>.\r\nI haven’t heard anything about HB 170 funds going to any passenger rail\r\nprojects outside Atlanta, either.\r\n

\r\nJim Galloway praised HB 170 as Republicans admitting mass transit was good,\r\nAJC 30 January 2015,\r\n\r\nA Kitty Hawk moment for transportation in Georgia<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nSomebody had to do something, the speaker shrugged, or the Capitol\r\nwould have lost control of an important conversation.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOur exchange quickly shifted to what may be, in philosophical terms,\r\nthe most important aspect of H.B. 170: An endorsement of mass\r\ntransit — long the racially charged punching bag of\r\nRepublicans in Georgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIf Galloway or House Republicans or anybody else is concerned about\r\nmass transit in Georgia, how about funding passenger rail from Valdosta\r\nto Atlanta?\r\nTaking Valdosta and Lowndes County taxes to Atlanta for MARTA is not an answer.\r\n

\r\nI think Galloway missed the most important admission by the Speaker:\r\nit’s about state control of local funds.\r\nGalloway remarks, in a typical Atlanta attitude:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThat the legislation would require local officials to raise new\r\ntaxes to help replace $500 million or so in lost revenue is, in one\r\nsense, beside the point. For now.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nTired of being “beside the point” to whatever Atlanta wants?\r\nSpeak up this evening at the County Commission against HB 170!\r\n

\r\nControl by Atlanta,\r\nand revenge\r\n\r\nfor counties that voted against T-SPLOST<\/a>.\r\nIt may not be coincidental that HB 170 bill sponsor\r\nJay Robert’s Mitchell County\r\n\r\npassed T-SPLOST<\/a>, even if only by less than 1%,\r\nwhile Lowndes County and Valdosta voted heavily against T-SPLOST.\r\n

\r\nAJC’s Georgia Legislative Navigator\r\nonly gives HB 170\r\n\r\n24% chance of passing<\/a>.\r\nHowever, that’s probably assuming local governments actually actively oppose it.\r\n

\r\nWhile Valdosta may have more reason to be concerned,\r\nbecause its citizens would be taxed doubly if both Valdosta and Lowndes\r\nCounty raised taxes to cover the HB 170 shortfall,\r\nit seems like the shortfall to the county\r\n\r\npredicted by the county’s own tax expert<\/a>\r\nwould be enough for the county government to actively oppose HB 170.\r\n

\r\nWill the county government represent all the citizens of the county?\r\n

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