Macon-Bibb Mayor proposes cutting all former Macon city taxes in FY 16 budget

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Former Macon City residents could pay less taxes next fiscal year.

“It’ll be a 15% reduction from where we started three years ago,” explained Macon-Bibb Mayor Robert Reichert.

Mayor Reichert says that would put Macon-Bibb County ahead of its budget reduction schedule.

“The mandatory budget reduction was 5% per year for four years,” said Mayor Reichert.

The proposal also eliminated all former city of Macon taxes.

“There’s no separate tax district. Everybody in the consolidated government now will be paying one rate of tax,” said Mayor Reichert.

The county millage rate would remain the same. The budget recommendations also include the new pay scale. That means all employees, whether they were former city of county workers, will get equal pay.

“We had made measures to rectify some of the disparities in pay. This new pay scale will bring everybody in line,” said Bibb County Sheriff David Davis.

The sheriff’s office will only be getting about a third of the total $87,000,000 allotted for public safety.

“You’re never going to get a person to say they they’ve gotten all they want, but we’ve got enough in this budget to carry on the work that we need to do,” explained Sheriff Davis.

However, nothing is set just yet.

“Commissioners have got to spend some time in the notebook,” said Commissioner Gary Bechtel.

Bechtel is the Chairman of the Operations and Finance Committee. He called a meeting next week to start reviewing the proposed budget.

“What was the thinking behind getting to this number within each department? We’ve got retirements, we’ve got a lot of unknowns as it related to how this number was derived,” explained Bechtel.

Bechtel explained his committee will work to fill in necessary “holes” before public hearings begin. He adds department heads will also be invited to next Tuesday’s meeting.

The budget will be advertised starting Wednesday. A public hearing is scheduled for June 9th at 6:00 p.m. Commissioners are expected to take a full vote on the budget at their meeting on June 16th.