A solution?

Mr. Feller has purportedly come up with a solution to the property tax situation. See his idea on his blog. http://www.camdenganews.com/blog/. Here is the referenced section of the code in its entirety. § 48-5-304. Approval of tax digests when assessments in arbitration or on appeal; procedure; withholding of grants by Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services (a) The commissioner shall not be required to disapprove or withhold approval of the digest of any county solely because appeals have been filed or arbitrations demanded on the assessment of any property or number of properties in the county. In such cases, the assessment or assessments fixed by the board of tax assessors shall be listed together with the return value on the assessments and forwarded in a separate listing to the commissioner at the time the digest is filed for examination and approval. The commissioner shall not approve any digest when the assessed value that is in dispute for any property or properties on appeal or in arbitration exceeds 3 percent of the total assessed value of the total taxable tangible digest of the county for the same year. In any year when a complete revaluation or reappraisal program is implemented, the commissioner shall not approve a digest when 5 percent or more of the property by assessed value in dispute is in arbitration or on appeal and 5 percent or more of the number of properties is in arbitration or on appeal. When the assessed value in dispute on any one appeal or arbitration exceeds 1.5 percent of the total assessed value of the total taxable digest of the county for the same year, such appeal or arbitration may be excluded by the commissioner in making his or her determination of whether the digest may be approved under the limitations of the Code section.(b) The Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services shall withhold any and all grants appropriated to any county until the county tax digest for the previous calendar year has been submitted to the commissioner as required by law. While I can see where this idea might be as wildly popular at first glance as Sandy hopes, I would hasten to point out that it could be TOO popular. Suppose the goal of 3% contested assessments is exceeded by a factor of 10. It would take quite a while to deal with protests from 30% or more of the county freeholders. "Good," you say? Bear in mind that until the state approves the digest, the county literally can not, by law, send out the tax bills. You could well have a situation where the counties revenue stream dries up and there is ZERO cash flow for daily operations. As we know, the incumbents (i.e., the Terrible Troika) have used the "rainy day" funds over the last decade or so to hold down the millage, thus insuring their incumbent advantage at the polls. It would not be there when needed. I would suggest that it would be rather a Pyrrhic victory if we had maybe one ambulance and one county patrol car covering the whole county, not to mention massive lay offs of all other county personnel. The only alternative to draconian cuts would be massive borrowing. I think this plan bears a good bit more thinking through. Here is Sandy's intent, clarified in his own words: sandy feller Saint Marys, GA Reply » Report Abuse Judge it! #2 40 min ago english translation if all of you and i mean all of you appeal then the state will not approve the tax digest.no tax digest no millage rate no millage rate no tax bill. check www.camdenganews.com/ for all the details (And no money to run county government!) Now, on the other hand, Commissioner Berry's idea of paying a $40,000 to $50,000 fine to the state for the "privilege" of basing everyone's taxes on a lower, prior year's tax digest, is a good one and quite a bargain. It would give us breathing room and time to come up with a definitive cure for what ails the tax assessor's office.