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Over 62 MILLION DOLLARS owed this County and CEO Burrell Ellis refuses to bring in the recovery specialist to recover this money that evidently DeKalb Recorders Court does not have enough sense to collect !

CEO Burrell Ellis = People are dying in the streets of South DeKalb three at a time and you sit on your hind legs and do nothing about it ! The DeKalb Police and Fire Departments could sure use this money !

Who are you protecting CEO Ellis by not bringing in these Recovery Specialist ?

Maybe we should check the Pockets of the DeKalb CEO and Board of Commissioners a little closer !

If I were the DeKalb DA I would have already began an ASSET SEARCH of the USUAL SUSPECTS ? (Elected Officials)

When values are reduced that does not mean that your taxes will be reduced. Millage rate can be increased, your homestead exemption can be reduced, your sanitation can be increased. Homeowners still will be paying the loan amount that they received to purchase the home. If taxes are not increased then we as homeowners will suffer from lack of police, sanitation, school buses, fireman, and our roads will not be safe to drive on. come on people we can not have it both ways. We want the advantages of living in the county but we don't want to pay the taxes. Who do you think will pay the taxes that you don't pay because your value was drastically decreased. Your neighbor will take up the slack. I agree that Dekalb County has to many high salary employees that are not needed. We need to get back to the days of Leann levitan

Wow, who could have anticipated this problem?! I did, for one. If you read my comment a couple of weeks ago then you'll know that the county government was headed for another budget crunch.

Why, you ask? Because an AJC analysis showed that overall DeKalb property values were assessed by the county at 25 percent more than fair market value last year. Those inflated values were the worst of any county in the metro area. So the budget crunch this year was almost inevitable, because county leaders either don't make proper plans when it comes to the budget and/or they lie to the public as long as they can in order to put off tough decisions and the ultimate day of reckoning.

The budget shortfall this year was going to depend on what the tax assessor's office did. If the tax assessor's office did their job correctly we'd have an even bigger drop in property values. If the tax assesor's covered for the inept BOC, then values would stay the same. However, with the AJC articles and enough homeowners aware of the discrepancy in values, the tax assesor's compromised and gave us a 10 percent drop. I'm sure some areas will drops of 50 percent or more.

So what's probably going to happen is the $30 million or so the BOC cut earlier this year will remain, there will be a millage rate increase, and additional budget cuts. However, the silver lining for most residents (and how the CEO and BOC will probably try to sell their millage rate increase) is that since their homes have lost a good chunck of their value, they will actually pay less in property taxes than they did in previous years, even with a higher millage rate.

Property values in this county are in the crapper and not going to get much better any time soon. I feel sorry for those residents whose homes have retained most of their pre-recession value, because they are going to be asked to pay more in taxes with future millage rate increases. I'm sure this will inspire future annexations by Doraville, Chamblee, Dunwoody and incorporation by Brookhaven and possibly Tucker.

I really hate to seeing such high deficits, especially when they result in property tax increase that many homeowners are simply unable to pay right now. With families continuing to lose their homes to foreclosures due to an inability to pay their bills and high unemployment--increasing property taxes will only add more strain to these families in need.

Typical Democrat, the county don't have enough money because of HIGH salary's officials have in Dekalb county. Why don't you all cut back on your Income and see how you would feel, but know, you say the taxpayer has the money. I don't see how you, Burell Ellis, think that raising taxes fix anything but Your Pocket. If taxes weren't so high, people would have money to BUY Houses in Dekalb county and that would give you the money, you say , that you need. Dekalb county has plenty of Employees !! DON'T RAISE TAXES
!!!!

Increase property tax! Again, how long are they going to keep increasing property value. Had they see that people hardly afford to keep their homes. This is insane. No wonder people just abandone their homes and don't care because they cannot afford to keep their hight mortgage, home values is depreciating and unemployment is very high. They put the burden on all this people which is not fair and they don't care. I wish I can leave my home and say forget it. It's not worth keeping a home nowadays.

Jerry, you are a fortunate man. The house next to me hasn't been mowed in over two years. CBS could easily film a new episode of "Survivor" there....I'm pretty sure all kinds of scary things are lurking there.