At their work session last Friday, July 23, the Haralson County Commissioners made several housekeeping decisions on maintenance and protocol for the county.

Before any decisions were made however, Tax Assessor Sandra Tant gave the board “some good news, and some very good news.”

“The sales ratio has increased from 33 to 38. This is the first time since 2002 that it has increased by that much,” she said.

Tant told the board that this is very good because commercial, agricultural and residential will all pay 40 percent on their property taxes and there is no penalty for the county this year. Tant told the board that this is the result of hard work from the Assessor’s Office, which has worked constantly over the past few years to pull that value up.

Tant said that this will greatly benefit the county for the 2011 tax year in bringing up tax revenue. If the sales ratio stays up and ad valorem taxes pick up, the next tax year should mark good improvement.

The good news, she said, will counteract the county’s obligations to House Bill 233, which does not allow the office to reevaluate property value, only to add real, new additions to the county’s tax digest. Tant said the digest is also at the mercy of House Bill 346, a new bill that requires the digest to reflect the value of property that has gone into foreclosure and therefore has often times sold forless than it is actually worth.

Tant also told the board that 17,000 assessment notices will be going out in May 2011 to residents, and she expects at least the average appeal rate of 10 percent. The appeals cause the digest to drop a great deal between May 1, when it stops for the previous tax year, and when the next tax year begins July 1.

“We’re only able to add a small amount, we only have two appraisers, but we’ll try to add as much to the digest as we can,” Tant said.

Chairman Poole brought up the restoration of the county’s plat books, which had been previously digitized for better upkeep. Apparently, the company in charge of restoring the books did not put them back together after digitizing them, and Poole and County Clerk Alison Palmer were unable to find any section in the contract with the company that required the company to do so. The board confirmed the inherent value of the books to the county, and Commissioner Eric Robinson suggested that the county take legal action against the company to force them to reassemble the books after the project is completed. After checking with the county attorney, Palmer confirmed that they couldn’t force the restoration of the books from the original company and are considering hiring a different company, Peeler and Sons, to put the books back together. The cost of restoration is more than $34,000.

The board expects to remain financially stable through the month of September using a tax anticipated note (TAN), an accomplishment that Chairman Poole said had not yet been reached by this board. That means the first and second payroll will be covered from the amount of $1.5 million borrowed from the Citizens and Southern Bank on the assumption that tax revenue will cover the money later. The county also has $700,000 in a money market account to supplement funds.

The board decided to bid out a contract for recreation concessions, as the board only made a $4,000 profit from merchandise last year and the amount does not cover the cost of labor to sell the merchandise.

The board also rewrote the county’s employee handbook to give all employees – 8 hour, 12 hour, and 24 hour workers – one full shift for bereavement in order to make the time off fair to everyone.

Finally, Chairman Poole told the board that he had to remind everyone to keep track of their budgets.

“Last year, our fund balance of $326,000 was our saving grace, but this year we don’t have a fund balance,” Poole said.

Every budget will have to stick to its bottom line, leaving department heads accountable for their expenditures. Poole said that the county can’t legally hold elected officials to this stricter budget management, but Commissioner Sammy Robinson believed that these officials would hold to their budgets.

The Board of Commissioners will hold their next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 10 a.m.