DeKalb County Board Approves Budget: No Tax Increase

 The DeKalb County Board has approved a 2011 budget that won’t increase taxes.

Tuesday, the board approved at $530 million budget, which includes several steep cuts from 4.5 percent to almost 9 percent across county departments, according to County Commissioner Elaine Boyer.

“The citizens have spoken, commissioners have heard them and we have kept spending to reasonable levels for this year,” said Commissioner Elaine Boyer in a press release. “No matter what the CEO said, we knew the county could live within its means.  DeKalb families have to do it, and county government should have to do it as well.”

The county is facing declining tax revenues, County CEO Burrell Ellis said in the county’s revenue dropped by $86 million from 2008 to 2010, and is expected to fall by $13 million in 2011.

Ellis had recommended at $563 million budget, which would have resulted in a 2.32 mill rate increase. The departmental budget requests for 2011 in total were $642 million.

“There were no sacred cows this year,” Boyer said in the release. “From Washington all the way down to DeKalb County, taxpayers are demanding that their government reduce spending. We cannot continue to spend with disregard for the consequences.  Taxpayers are struggling to stay in their homes and we must do our part and not increase their tax burden.”