SaveGwinnett.com

Recent audits of state user fees found that similar fees are inconsistent across the state and many have no relation to the actual cost of the service being provided.

When the users of government services pay for those services, there is a lesser need to use general fund dollars, paid by taxpayers who never use the service. User fees focus that portion of the cost of government on those who actually use the service.

There is a danger, however, when politicians consider raising fees across the board in response to a financial crisis:

“We shouldn’t just have a fee for a fee’s sake and call it a user fee and exploit it for something else,” said Benita Dodd, the vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. “Then it just becomes a tax.”

Georgia considers higher fees instead of taxes 111209 – The Augusta Chronicle

SaveGwinnett.com offered a plan to reduce the 2009 tax increase by 32%; to generate revenue to replace property taxes; to battle the impact of illegal immigration on jobs and the local economy; and to establish ethics standards for county officials.

The County Commission ignored our proposal.

The Commission’s failure to act responsibly on the 2009 tax increase is just the latest in a series of lapses in judgment– the sanitation plan and resulting lawsuits; the failure to reach agreement with Gwinnett’s cities on service delivery; and the land deals with well-connected political supporters which are now the subject of a special Grand Jury investigation.

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