About The Baldwin bulletin. (Milledgeville, GA) ????-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 2017)
Page A8 The Baldwin Bulletin I www.BBnews.today Thursday, August 31,2017 ALAINA MINSHEW/Staff The businesses in Milledgeville are affected by the Georgia College employees and the students, drawing in more business and creating jobs. College Continued from A1 Georgia College has.” The jobs created on campus help the community increase its business. For example, the college pays employees and the employees spend their paycheck out in the community. “The impact for the study area is Milledgeville and some of the surrounding counties. Different components would include the staff we pay,” Grant said. “Those salaries are spent at a night out at a restaurant, or whatever the individual wants to spend (money) on, which means that payroll goes back out into the community and a number of different counties.” Not only are Georgia College employees spending money in the community, but so are students. Amici’s Milledgeville location seems to be popular among locals and students. “We are still really popular with the local people and the local community,” Bob Ewing, one of the owners of Amici, said. ‘We don’t see business slow down too much in summer. It’s great having the college so close by because of foot traffic.” This effect Georgia College has in the area also helps create jobs around the community, not just on campus, according to Grant. With the college spending money, businesses need to hire additional help to meet the needs of the college. ‘We also have a compo nent of things the univer sity buys,” Grant said. “A lot of those things come from vendors and trades people from Milledgeville and the surrounding areas.” SweeTreats, a local ice cream shop in downtown Milledgeville, hires college students due to the demand of products from people visiting the shop. Terri Wommack, the baker at SweeTreats, has hired several college students since opening the shop. “We hire all college and local high school girls,” Wommack said. “It’s mostly girls that apply here, and we have had Georgia College employees before.” Like SweeTreats, Amici also hires Georgia College students, along with Georgia Military College students. We have a good array of college students. I would say about 90 percent of our employee base is college students, but we do need managers, so a lot of those are local people,” Ewing said. Having Georgia College is helpful to nearby businesses. “At least half of our sales go down during the summer when the students are gone,” Wommack said. “We greatly depend on them. The college greatly impacts everybody downtown.” According to the study, GC’s economic impact area includes Baldwin, Hancock, Jones, Putnam, Washington and Wilkinson counties. Baldwin County also falls into Middle Georgia State University’s economic impact area. Middle Georgia State’s main campus is in Macon. For the full study on the economic impact Georgia College has on the commu nity, please visit https:// www.usg.edu/assets/usg/ docs/USG_Impact_20l6. pdf Taxes Continued from A1 held on Thursday, Aug. 24. The first session was at 10 a.m. while the second was at 6 p.m. In the 10 a.m. session, approximately a dozen concerned citizens were in the audience to learn about the changes and to express any concerns they may have. Hudson, said the rate needed to remain at 9-85 mills, due to agreements the county needed to keep. The rate is the same as last year’s, however, the county rollback rate was 9-06 mills. “The rollback millage rate is something that will produce the same amount of revenue as last year, based on this year’s digest,” Hudson said. The public hearings regarding the millage rate are required by state law in the case of it going over rollback rate. She also delved into the process the county was required to take, begin ning with the assessments. This year, the county did these for the first time in quite awhile. Georgia law requires assessments to take place at least every 10 years. f-j^LFOF^ Get your hometown news one year for just *15 or two years for *30!* *for new sbscriptions in Baldwin County only 706-485-3501 ext. 813 / 478-452-1777 □ One year $15 □ Two years $30 Name: Address: City: Phone: State: CA Zip Code: Email: Mail with payment to: P.O. Box 4027 I Eatonton, GO 31024 OR Brine by The Baldwin Bulletin: 136 S Wayne St \ Downtown Milledeeville *********************************** ‘We had not done (assess ments) in 10 or 12 previous years before,” Hudson said. “We were cited by the state of Georgia, because some of our ratios went out of balance.” Hudson said the county had a short time to come back into compliance or else they would face a $5 per parcel fine. In Baldwin County, the fine would have totaled over $100,000. Those agreements include raising the salary of sworn law enforcement personnel between 6 and 10 percent, and providing $500,000 a year to the Oconee Regional Medical Center for 10 years. “That was to increase (LEO) salaries of course, in reaction to the State of Georgia increasing the salaries of state patrol,” she said. “It lessened our pool of getting qualified officers we could have. That was at about a cost of $250,000.” The county also needed to add an additional $50,000 in the 2018 budget for other changes at the state level, including a requirement to provide cancer coverage for firefighters. An additional $100,000 was there to update technology for tax appraisal and collections. “This is to help consol idate the information between the two depart ments,” Hudson said. “Hopefully it will make the process easier, short and timely and possibly could help the taxpayer if we could get the bills out a little bit earlier. They would have a little bit Disorderly Continued from A1 customers first.” According to the narra tive, Jones noticed the smell of an alcoholic beverage on Talley’s breath and had slurred speech. According to the narrative, Talley started using racial slurs referring to the victim. Jones advised Talley not to continue using the word and proceeded to ask how much alcohol she had to drink, to which she said was not his business. According to the narrative, the victim said Talley called her derogatory names and grabbed the store’s phone off longer time to pay them.” The total came out to approximately $1.2 million. Hudson said the county would gain the $1.2 million from the changes, however; approximately $380,000 would be from new growth. Hudson explained new growth as “New things that have been added to the tax digest.”. Hudson also showed percentages of where money gained from the millage rate money goes. Approximately 65 percent goes to the Baldwin County School District. An additional 16 percent goes to public safety while 6 percent goes to general government. Appeals status During the meeting members of the Baldwin County Tax Assessor Board were there to answer some questions by concerned citizens, including board chairman Harry Keim. According to Keim there are approximately 22,500 parcels in Baldwin County. Of those, 2,080 are under appeal following the assessment. “It’s about 9-8 percent of the total parcels,” he said. Notices were mailed out in late May, and property owners had 45 days to file an appeal with the county. Hudson said the appeals process takes up to 180 days. Heim said however, if the county doesn’t respond with an assessment the property owner believes is fair, it then can be the counter several times. In addition, Talley went to cus tomer service and returned. Talley’s son got their food and left. “I got Brenda’s driver’s license and called it in, and she advised me I was stupid and was uncooperative,” according to the narrative. “I asked Brenda if she had away of contacting her son in the store, and she said no.” Accordingto the narrative, Jones and Talley walked out of the store and met with a lieutenant. While the two officers were speaking to Talley, she advised them to “shut up,” and provided other derogatory remarks. Talley, accordingto the nar rative, asked if she was being placed under arrest and was appealed even further. “It can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia,” he said. Commissioner Henry Craig also mentioned this process occurs in every county of the state. “The process we have is by the State of Georgia, “he said. “Every county has the same process.” Hudson in her presen tation showed a $10,000 increase on a $100,000 house would amount to $39.40 in additional property taxes. A $20,000 increase on a $100,000 house would amount to $78.80. If a person owned 10 properties worth $100,000, a $10,000 increase in each would total $394.00, while a $20,000 increase would mean $788.00 overall. Baldwin County receives $295.50 in property taxes from a house with a value of $100,000. Many of the concerns from the citizens in attendance involved the revaluation and a lack of communication from the board regarding not keeping the evaluations up to date. “I can’t defend what other boards did,” Craig said. The final public hearing will occur at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 31 at room 319 of the Baldwin County Courthouse. Following the hearing, the board will vote at 11 a.m. on whether or not to accept the proposed millage rate. advised yes. She then stated they couldn’t arrest her, and try to walk away. The officers then placed her in handcuffs. Talley’s son then walked out of WalMart, and officers explained the situation. “I let Brenda talk to her son and asked her if she wanted him to take her purse and food, and she stated yes,” according to the narrative. According to the report, Talley’s hand started to slip out of the handcuffs, so Jones proceeded to adjust them. As he was fixing the handcuffs, she told Jones she would “(expletive) me up for the rest of my life.” Jones transported Talley to the Milledgeville Police Department and turned her over to detention.
