I’m going to give a lot of credit to Ben Hammond, the public information officer for Walton County, who was the only member of county government who attended the tax hike protest and petition signing event held last Thursday at the Historic Courthouse in beautiful downtown Monroe. 

Ben was there to answer any and all questions concerned citizens had with regard to the tax hike, and he did so in a thoughtful and thought-provoking manner that might have actually eased the fears of some of those concerned citizens. No name calling. No belittling. Just provided information and let those listening make up their minds. 

It was really refreshing. 

I’m also going to commend those who organized and took part in the protest and petition drive. This was clearly a grassroots movement, you didn’t see any of the city’s or county’s political powerbrokers on hand, just regular citizens letting their elected officials know they didn’t think they were being treated fairly, and they want that to change while there is still a chance to change it. 

Again, refreshing. No riots, no burning the town down. Just making their voices and concerns heard. 

I don’t know how much if any good it will do in terms of getting a special meeting called by the Walton County Board of Commissioners to rescind Austin Harris, Finance Columnist Planning your business exit: Start with the end in mind the nearly 20% property tax increase just passed by the majority, but it has been a great First Amendment exercise by opponents nonetheless. 

I’ve had a lot of people ask me, and I heard a lot of discussion about this Thursday evening as well, how they will be impacted by the commission’s tax hike. I keep hearing my taxes going up 20% and that’s a lot, will be the common refrain, but when I talk to someone with the county they tell me it’s only going to be a little bit. In fact, mine might even go down. Can’t be both. Which is it? 

The answer is both can be right, and I’m going to use round numbers to make the math as simple as I can to show you how. You will probably hear I didn’t include all the variables and factors that go into your tax bill to try and discredit this, but if you are looking for the bottom line I’m going to give it to you. 

Let’s say your property tax bill is $4,000. Of that number, $1,000 in taxes comes from the millage rate set by the Walton County Board of Commissioners. The other $3,000 comes from the millage rate set by the Walton County Board of Education. 

So when you hear you are paying a lot more in school taxes, it’s true, you are because the millage rate for school taxes is quite a bit higher. 

A divided Walton County Commission just increased the cost of its portion of your tax bill by 20%, which means your county taxes have now increased by $200 to a total of $1,200. 

At the same time this was happening, the Walton County Board of Education voted to cut its portion of your property tax bill by 5%, which means your school taxes went down $150 to $2,850. 

The combination of the county increase and the school decrease moves your total tax bill from $4,000 to $4,050, a net increase of only $50. 

Doesn’t sound so bad, right? That’s why you keep hearing “wait until the tax bills come out, you’ll see.” 

The only problem is that Walton County is leaving out it absorbed all the savings you would have realized from the school board’s reduction to come up with that only $50 number. Some folks would have probably preferred that money went into their bank accounts instead of the county’s, but I’m just spitballing here. 

I can also tell you I’ve heard from more than one school official who isn’t particularly happy about Walton County officials implying they worked together with the Walton County school board on the timing of their increase to mitigate the impact of the increase. The school board was trying to give taxpayers relief, I’m told, not help the county out of jam with its increase. 

This is why people say the government is going to get you one way or the other. Death and taxes, folks. The only two things in this life guaranteed. 

Patrick Graham is proprietor and publisher of  The Covington News and its sister paper, The Walton Tribune. His email address is patrick.graham@waltontribune.com.