Cobb County officials on Tuesday proposed a $1.2 billion budget that would fund raises for public safety workers in 2024 and leave the county’s property tax rate unchanged.
Bill Volckmann, the county’s chief financial officer, said Cobb does not plan to roll back the millage rate to compensate for rising property values. If the Board of Commissioners approves, that means most homeowners will face higher tax bills, even as the rate stays the same.
The additional tax collections will help cover a 3.8% increase from this year’s budget. State law requires local governments to advertise this as a tax increase, and public hearings on the millage will be held throughout the summer.
Volckmann said the biggest change to the upcoming fiscal year budget, which begins in October 2023, is funding the public safety pay raises that were initially paid for with federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars earlier this year. Public safety employees will also receive the last of three years of pay adjustments approved in early 2020.
In the proposed budget, commissioners also plan to fully fund the district attorney’s office’s family advocacy center for domestic violence victims and add 34 new positions, many of which are in the fire and 911 departments.
Cobb’s budget is developed on a two-year cycle, but the commissioners vote on the budget each year. The upcoming spending plan mostly replicates the 2023 budget that began last October, with some minor changes, Volckmann said.
The budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year passed last summer sought to rebuild county departments and address major staffing issues and service backlogs brought on by the pandemic. Last year, county employees painted a bleak picture of Cobb’s operations: they asked for over 600 new positions in multiple departments and raises to ease the high employee vacancy rate. The county added 147 new positions and raised the minimum pay to $17 an hour.
Commissioners will hold one public hearing on the budget on July 11 at 9 a.m. and three public hearings on the millage on July 11 at 9 a.m., July 18 at 6:30 p.m. and July 25 at 7 p.m. The board will adopt the budget and millage rate at the July 25 board meeting.
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