On October 15 a special called joint meeting between Fannin County and the City of Blue Ridge took place to enter into a new agreement on the L.O.S.T. Upon short discussions Fannin County Board of Commissioners and Blue Ridge Mayor Donna Whitener came to an agreement that would move Blue Ridge from 12.25% to 14%.

This change will result in Blue Ridge receiving an additional $65 -$70 thousand dollars yearly in revenue. This is on top of the increase the city was to receive of 11.1% to 12.5%. The city is now going from 11.1% to 14% and the estimated increase in revenue is around $130 thousand dollars. This does not include future tax revenue from Wal-Mart. Adding Wal-Mart, the tax revenue could reach over $200 thousand dollars.

Mayor Whitener told FYN,

“This is big for the city”

Whitener went on to tell us she will be able to roll back property taxes. She thinks the residents will be happy to hear their property taxes will go down.

FYN spoke with Chairman Bill Simonds about the new agreement. He stated,

“This is a win win for Fannin County and Blue Ridge. There is no use for fighting over this…This is a good thing for both of us.”

With the new agreement and the Tax mistake in the last week, this puts the county set to lose over $300,000 in next year’s budget. Simonds would speak on the budget,

“We (the commissioners) have a plan in place. We might have to make a few cuts, but we will get through this.”

“On October 7, 2013, the Georgia Supreme Court issued an opinion, Turner County v.
City of Ashburn, in which the Court held certain parts of the Local Option Sales Tax Act
Unconstitutional.”

During a February meeting the City of Blue Ridge rejected the final offer from the County to move the city from 11.1% to 12.25%. Blue Ridge asked for 20.5%. Blue Ridge said let’s go to court.

In March Judge Stone ruled against the request from the City of Blue Ridge for 20.5%. Judge Stone’s ruling was in favor of the County’s final offer back in February of 12.25%.

County Attorney Lynn Doss received notice Monday morning, Oct 7th, that the Georgia Supreme Court had ruled that parts of L.O.S.T., also known as baseball style arbitration, was unconstitutional and their certificate was void. In the ruling the court gave no direction. The court stated it was not its role to instruct counties and cities on how to proceed.

Due to legislators not being in session, the ACCG and Georgia Municipal association appealed to Attorney General Sam Olens and the Department of Revenue for direction. The Attorney General’s office released a statement last Friday at 5 o’clock with little if no direction, only expressing that State tax law is administered by the state’s Revenue Department.

Counties and cities who used the Baseball style arbitration and now have their L.O.S.T. certificate voided have until 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct 17th, to submit a new certificate. Counties who don’t have their certificate turned in this week will lose the total L.O.S.T. revenue.

One thing is certain, this has cost counties and cities thousands of dollars all across the state. Several counties won’t have this resolved this week. So it looks like this is going to be a hot topic in this upcoming session.

Be sure to watch the video below from the meeting on Tuesday.