Fulton County commissioners considering property, sales tax increases to fund new jail

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County commissioners weighed whether or not to raise taxes in the county to pay for a new jail during their most recent meeting.

At a Fulton County Board of Commissioners meeting in mid-May, commissioners voted to stop the current process to either renovate or replace the Fulton County Jail.

Commissioners voted to cancel the current Request For Proposal issued for a feasibility study and project development plan to build a new jail to instead rewrite the RFP to solicit bidders to perform the work on May 16.

The most recent RFP had included a feasibility study, which ballparked costs between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion to either renovate and upgrade the jail, or demolish it and build a new one.

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During Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners debated the pros and cons of renovating or rebuilding the jail, as well as the potential fundraising methods available to do so.

Commissioner Dana Barrett introduced a resolution that would have allowed the commission to appeal to the state legislature to allow them to raise sales taxes countywide to help fund the jail, but the vote to do so failed.

During the discussion of what options were available to raise the money needed to solve the embattled jail’s problems, raising property taxes was a method up for debate.

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No real decision was made as far as how to proceed, but commission members did float an option to increase millage rates on property taxes by three to four mills. That could end up as a significant increase, though the potential exact proportion wasn’t immediately available.

With both potential fundraising options, county commissioners expressed concerns about how the taxes would be regressive, meaning it would have a bigger, and possibly negative, impact on lower-income residents and visitors in Fulton County.

Along with the back and forth over how to fund the jail reconstruction or renovation, commissioners were not united in how to proceed with the work itself, either.

Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. spoke out strongly against renovating the facility rather than replacing it outright.

“The walls are literally crumbling and inmates are taking metal out of the wall,” he said. He also referred to a recent attack at the jail, where one inmate crawled through a hole in the wall of a jail shower to attack another inmate.

He said the idea of renovating the jail in its current condition, rather than simply replacing it, wasn’t feasible.

Due to the vote’s failure to pass the measure, the Fulton County Commission is not, currently, moving forward with a new RFP or a enacting a sales or property tax increase is not yet approved.

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