Dalton, Varnell, Whitfield County seek emergency order on tax digest

Published 8:00 am Thursday, September 12, 2024

The Whitfield County Board of Commissioners and the city councils of Dalton and Varnell have filed an emergency collection petition in Whitfield County Superior Court seeking to allow the local governments to collect property taxes based on the 2023 tax digest plus a 10% increase in all assessments.

“We are grateful to the cities of Dalton and Varnell for their support in filing this temporary collection order,” said Board of Commissioners Chairman Jevin Jensen. “Their decision to join our coalition is a testament to their commitment to protecting Whitfield County’s taxpayers. We hope the courts will also recognize the importance of this action.”

Jensen said the matter should be assigned to a judge by the end of this week who would then schedule a hearing.

The town of Cohutta and the city of Tunnel Hill do not collect property taxes.

The petition said the “preliminary 2024 Whitfield County tax digest is potentially not enforceable or collectable by law as a result of numerous alleged inaccuracies.”

“Unless the court authorizes the immediate, temporary collection of the taxes in this circumstance, the county authority would not be able to maintain an orderly and normal function of county business and governmental affairs,” the petition said.

The petition cites the testimony of Whitfield County Tax Commissioner Danny Sane when the county Board of Assessors obtained a writ of mandamus from Superior Court requiring Sane to sign the 2024 tax digest. Sane had previously sent a letter to the members of the Board of Assessors and other officials expressing concerns about the proposed digest. Sane has said he cannot in good conscience sign the proposed digest. Sane has until the end of the month to sign it under the court’s mandate.

“Even though the average values of our commercial and industrial properties had increased, the assessors had dramatically reduced more than 800 of our commercial and industrial accounts by more than $50,000,” Sane wrote in the letter. “Some of the decreases were in the millions!”

“This decrease in specific commercial and industrial property was coming at a time when over 7,000 homes had been increased by more than 50%,” he wrote. “I knew immediately what this meant. It meant that there was about to be a dramatic shift in Whitfield County’s tax burden from business and industry to homeowners.”

Members of the Board of Commissioners voted Monday to authorize County Attorney Robert Smalley to file the petition.

“I assume that like me the other commissioners have received a number of calls regarding the property tax assessments,” said Commissioner Barry Robbins.

He said the commissioners have been discussing “anomalies” in the 2024 tax digest for a couple of weeks.

In a press release, Dalton Mayor Annalee Sams said, “It is unprecedented to see … 800 parcels had declines in values of greater than $50,000 and some of those in the millions. That doesn’t happen, particularly in a thriving community like Dalton, Georgia, we don’t have values going down multimillion dollars.

“Some of these are very well-known commercial parcels that have large retailers on them and how can it be explained that they went down in value several million? So, we have a responsibility to all of our citizens, to property owners, that we get this right and if there’s going to be a delay in the acceptance of the 2024 digest — and it cannot and should not be accepted until it’s correct — we need to take this action to ask for this temporary collection order.”

Robbins said the 10% increase was added “after consultation with the (state) Department of Revenue and to give our local school boards more flexibility.” The commissioners and the Dalton and Varnell city council members will set their government’s budget later this year but the school boards have already set the school system budgets.

Robbins said a 10% increase in the digest does not mean there will be a 10% increase in property taxes.

“Based on prior actions of the Whitfield County commissioners and the Dalton City Council it is highly likely that both will roll back the 10%,” he said.