Bowdon city officials held a work session Monday to review a proposed budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year that suggested a two-mill increase in property taxes for city residents.

Bowdon’s current millage rate is 8.77, which brings the proposed rate to 10.77 mills.

Bowdon City Manager Danny Mabry said that although Bowdon’s millage rate is already the highest in Carroll County, the revenue Bowdon receives on property taxes is far less than cities such as Carrollton and Villa Rica. He estimated that one mill in Villa Rica generally earns $600,000 to $700,000 for the city’s general fund, while Bowdon earns around $37,000 per mill.

“When you look at your millage, you really have to look at it in that context,” Mabry said. “There are big differences in what it raises here and what it raises in other cities.”

Revenues and expenditures for Bowdon’s general fund are up 9.15 percent from last year in the proposed budget, to a total of $1,935,375. Revenues and expenditures for the city’s utilities enterprise fund, the fund that controls Bowdon’s water and wastewater facilities, increased 1.98 percent from last year, bringing that total to $1,484,732.

The proposal includes a 2.5 percent cost-of-living wage increase for all city employees, an 18 percent increase for city employees’ health insurance premiums, and increases in fuel costs for all city departments to offset the rising cost of gasoline. It also allows for the purchase of one new car for the Bowdon Police Department that will be bought using the Georgia Municipal Association Lease-Purchase Plan, which Mabry said will cost the city about $25,000.

No new city positions would be created under the proposed budget.

Also included in the proposed budget is an agreement with the West Georgia Boot Camp in Waco that would bring boot camp workers into Bowdon to perform routine maintenance tasks. The proposal allows an annual payment of $49,000 in wages and benefits for a guard who would supervise the boot camp workers at all times, plus $20,000 for a van to transport them from Haralson County and $10,000 in maintenance supplies. The payments for the van and equipment would be one-time payments.

Bowdon Mayor Jim Watts said that the boot camp workers would work four days each week to perform tasks that the city’s public works employees do not have time to do. He added that hiring boot camp workers would be a more cost-effective means of beautifying the city than hiring additional public works employees to perform maintenance tasks.

Watts said boot camp workers have been used in Bowdon before with great success.

“A lot of people want to see beautification, and that’s part of it,” he said.

Other proposals included in the budget concerned increases in what Bowdon residents pay for water and sewage services. Under the new proposal, low-end water users (those using 2,000 gallons per month or less) would have a blended average increase of 2.93 in their base water and sewer rates. Water and sewage users consuming more than 2,000 gallons per month would see a flat 6 percent increase in their base rate and tap fees. A 6 percent increase in base rate has also been proposed for sanitation services.

While several concerns were raised with regard to raising water, sewage and millage rates, Mabry and Watts said that certain increases will be necessary to help fund the planned water and wastewater plant expansions and to prevent more dramatic cost increases in the future.

“It sounds like we’re jumping into it, but actually what we’re doing is easing into it over the next couple of years,” Watts said.

Several weeks remain before the mayor and council must finalize the 2008-09 budget, and one public hearing must be held before the budget goes into effect. City officials plan to meet to discuss the budget again June 9 prior to the City Council meeting.