I tried to help. I really did.

Remember the column I wrote after a split Walton County Board of Commissioners approved the new fiscal year budget during a meeting in May? Remember how the budget passed included an as-yet-to-be-voted-on property tax increase to help fund it? Remember I offered some unsolicited PR advice on why I thought this was going to go be a political problem for supporters of the proposed tax increase?

I tried to tell Chairman David Thompson, the commissioners, and County Manager John Ward that taxpayers locally already felt tapped out. That they needed to do a better job of reading the room. That their shut-up-and-get-your-checkbook-out approach was not going to fly with voters/taxpayers, and that if they wanted any chance of generating support for what they felt needed to be done they were going to have to do a better job of justifying the proposed millage rate hike to the public.

I really tried to help David. Like I said before, I like him. I tried to tell him when he campaigned for chairman he promised not to increase the millage rate and that he promised last May not to come after property owners for additional revenue if the voters would just renew the SPLOST, which local officials also did a terrible job of promoting even though it passed.

It’s been my experience if there is one thing voters can’t stand it’s politicians who don’t keep their word. Jesus called them hypocrites back in His day. You can look that up in your Bible. You’ll find it. 

My unsolicited public relations advice clearly went unheeded because here we are.

On Tuesday, a split Board of Commissioners passed a 1.865 millage rate increase, a nearly 20 percent rate hike, to fund that budget passed back in May. A budget that includes $20 million in new spending by the county. In one year. We’ll get to that here in a minute.

At the same time the Walton County Board of Education voted to cut its millage rate and provide residential property owners with some much-needed relief. At the same time we published a study from the City of Monroe indicating the way commercial property was being valued by the county was skewed in a way that negatively impacted residential property owners.

The optics on the commission’s decision as a result are, well, awful. 

Voting for the millage rate increase were Chairman Thompson and commissioners Pete Myers, Timmy Shelnutt and Bo Warren.  Voting against were commissioners Jeremy Adams, Lee Bradford and Kirklyn Dixon.

The reaction from voters, as predicted, has been outrage. While there is enough anger and calls for political justice to go around for everyone who voted for the increase, the vast majority of the angst has been directed at Chairman Thompson, who clearly led the millage rate hike charge.

It’s a good thing Thompson has indicated he won’t seek a third term as chairman. I’m not sure he could get elected dogcatcher right now given the volume of voter vitriol being spewed his way.

In fact, a growing number of voters don’t even want him to finish his current term as chairman, much less give him a third. Tuesday’s vote has prompted a recall campaign from those who want Thompson out as chairman, and don’t want to have to wait around for the next election. The last time I checked there were more than 2,000 signatures on the petition, which is still being circulated online everywhere.

Now back to the budget quickly to wrap up. A big part of the problem here is the increased spending associated with the new budget and the budget in general since Thompson took office. It’s amazing, actually, that revenues kept pace prior to Tuesday’s vote.

In the FY 2020 budget, commissioners approved $53 million in expense spending. So, since the county was founded in 1818 to 2020, a little over 200 years, county spending went from $0 to $53 million annually. Seems reasonable right?

In the last five years since Thompson has been chairman, county spending has nearly doubled, moving to $102 million in the new fiscal year. With $20 million of the spending increase happening in this year’s budget alone. Seems less reasonable right?

I mean, I know we’ve got a lot of growth going on but the county’s spending has doubled in five years from what it took nearly 200 years to get to? In the most fiscally conservative Republican county in the state of Georgia?

Hmmmm. I’m not sure what ol’ Roy Roberts Sr. would say about that, honestly.

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