Saving HTRG Saves You Money

September 1, 2008

Governor Perdue recently announced that he has frozen state payments into the Homeowner Tax Relief Grant (HTRG) fund which provides you with relief from your property tax bill. I have a simple two-word response to this decision: NO WAY.

This move would take $428 million out of homeowners’ pockets in order to stem the tide of a decline in other sources of state revenue. One estimate says that failing to fund this property tax relief could cost individual homeowners $250 per year on average.

Property tax relief is a welcome addition to any family budget, particularly in difficult economic times such as these. That $250 translates into a small handful of gas fill-ups or grocery bills. As a homeowner and father of two young children, it’s something I understand. When faced with an economic downturn, our state government should tighten its own belt, not tighten yours.

The reason the Governor is able to freeze these property tax relief grants is that the Georgia Constitution says the grants only exist to the extent they are funded in the state budget and does not provide that the grants must be funded at any specific amount. This should change. In the 2009 session of the General Assembly, I will sponsor a constitutional amendment to specify the amount of the grants.

Governor Perdue makes a point that these grants are often used by county governments as an excuse to increase their own spending without passing along any real savings to taxpayers. That is especially true in DeKalb County, where county government spending has increased more than 40 percent over the past eight years. However, this merely identifies another problem to be solved. It does not justify doing away with one of the solutions to skyrocketing property taxes.

No Comments » | Property Taxes, State Budget | Permalink
Posted by Mike Jacobs

New Year’s Diet for Bloated Budgets

January 14, 2008

Each year, the General Assembly is charged with setting a budget for our state government.  In fact, if we do nothing else during the annual legislative session, passing a budget is the one thing we absolutely must do.  It is mandated by the Georgia Constitution.

Georgia’s Fiscal Year 2008 budget exceeded $20 billion, and the FY 2009 budget we will consider during the legislative session that begins this Monday will be even larger.  These are your hard-earned tax dollars.

When budgeting for our households, we think about every penny we spend.  And that’s what the state government does with your tax dollars, right?

Wrong, at least until this year.

In the past, state budget-making has been governed by bureaucratic inertia.  Each department of the state government, through the Governor, submits an annual budget request to the General Assembly.  Previously, each department’s new annual request has been a carbon copy of the prior year’s budget, with some changes here and there that usually amount to nipping and tucking at the margins.  Consequently, the bulk of each department’s budget has been carried over from year to year to year.

This year, however, we will institute zero-based budgeting.  In a zero-based budgeting process, each department of the state government must come before the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, start their budget at zero, and justify every penny of taxpayer money the department is seeking to spend.  Inertia no longer will be the driving force behind the state budget.

Due to the magnitude of the state budget and the brevity of the 40-day legislative session, we can only require zero-based budgets for a couple of departments each year.  This year, it’s the Department of Revenue (DOR) and Department of Human Resources (DHR) that will be required to justify every penny in their budgets.  The departments will rotate from year to year so that every department in the state government must start at zero every few years.

Eliminate bloated budgets.  Demand results.  Justify every penny that is spent.  As stewards of your tax dollars, we owe you nothing less.

A version of this post was published in the January 9 edition of the Dunwoody Crier.

No Comments » | Fiscal Accountability, State Budget | Permalink
Posted by Mike Jacobs