Shownotes
In this episode, host Donovan Adkisson discusses the recent town hall meeting regarding significant increases in property assessments in Tifton. Mayor Julie B. Smith encouraged property owners to appeal their new assessments, which were carried out by an external firm (GMAS) due to the county's property values falling below state ratios. The last reassessment was conducted over 20 years ago, affecting all 19,350 parcels in the county.
The meeting had a high turnout, with over 200 attendees, and was streamed live. Mayor Smith clarified that the reassessment is not a tax bill and that the city plans to roll back millage rates to mitigate tax increases. Chief Tax Appraiser Hayward Becton explained the reassessment process, addressing concerns about discrepancies between assessed and market values.
Residents raised issues about the appeal process and the adequacy of the appraisal company. Many expressed frustrations over their property assessments and potential tax burdens. Donovan shared results from a recent survey of 210 respondents, revealing that 98.6% reported increases in property taxes, with a significant number experiencing increases of 50% or more.
Residents were encouraged to engage with legislators about potential property tax reforms. The meeting highlighted the need for transparency and accountability from local officials. Donovan also mentioned the technical difficulties faced during the live stream and efforts to improve audio quality for recordings.
Listeners are invited to share their thoughts through a survey or by emailing info@tiftontalks.com. Donovan emphasizes the importance of civil discourse as the community navigates these challenges together.
Transcripts
Welcome to the Tifton Talks podcast, recorded Wednesday, July 17th, 2024.
Speaker:I'm your host, Donovan Atkisson.
Speaker:Well, let's talk about property taxes.
Speaker:So we had the town hall meeting this past Saturday, July 13th,
Speaker:where the property owners were urged to appeal their new property value
Speaker:assessments, which for pretty much everyone has significantly increased.
Speaker:Tifton Mayor Julie B.
Speaker:Smith emphasized the importance of appealing these assessments, which
Speaker:were updated by an external firm.
Speaker:I think it's GMAS is their acronym.
Speaker:And that was due to the county's property values falling below the state required
Speaker:ratios. What came out of this meeting, among many things that came out among
Speaker:this meeting, was the fact that the last revaluation was performed in 2003,
Speaker:over 20 years ago, 2003.
Speaker:And this reassessment affected all 19,350 parcels in the county.
Speaker:The meeting was held at the TIFF Regional Events Center.
Speaker:There was a huge turnout to the point where the venue's capacity was exceeded.
Speaker:So you had 200 and something plus people inside, about the same amount outside.
Speaker:There was a live stream for those who couldn't attend.
Speaker:It was on the city of Tifton Facebook page.
Speaker:We also attempted to simulcast that on the Radio TIFF radio stream at RadioTiff.com.
Speaker:Mayor Smith clarified that the reassessment was not a tax bill and that the city and
Speaker:the county planned to roll back millage rates to offset any tax increases.
Speaker:Now, based on what I know about the Georgia Tax Digest requirements, the law, if they
Speaker:don't do the rollback, they have to have three hearings, basically three public
Speaker:announcements, gatherings, what have you.
Speaker:They can't just up and go, you know what, we're going to keep this extra money,
Speaker:which I believe the mayor actually pointed that out because what they're supposed to
Speaker:do is if there's a significant increase in the tax digest, they're supposed to roll
Speaker:those millage rates back to try to match the previous year's digest.
Speaker:Because the entire point of this is property tax is what funds the general fund.
Speaker:And I know a little bit about it as far as the way the city's budget is done, because
Speaker:I worked for the city for 10 years.
Speaker:I used to be the general manager of CityNet.
Speaker:I'm going to presume the county works the same way.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:And that's the reason why they have to wait until all the appeals are in so that they
Speaker:can finalize the tax digest so that they can basically make the tax digest income on par
Speaker:with what the budget is set for.
Speaker:I know I just stumbled all over that.
Speaker:So apologies.
Speaker:But that's the way I understand it anyway.
Speaker:Tiff County Chief Tax Appraiser Hayward Becton was there and he explained the
Speaker:reassessment process, which was mandated by Georgia law to ensure that property values
Speaker:reflect fair market value.
Speaker:Of course, concerns were raised by residents that included discrepancies between the
Speaker:assessed and market values, the impact of rising property values on taxes and the
Speaker:adequacy of the appraisal company.
Speaker:There were questions that were actually brought up.
Speaker:Why did we go out to a third party vendor and do this?
Speaker:And the answer basically was, well, there's only so many people in the tax assessor's
Speaker:office and they couldn't do it, which then, of course, brought up the question, well, if
Speaker:you can't do the assessments, how are you going to handle the appeals?
Speaker:And I think it was brought out in the meeting that, you know, even if they have to
Speaker:keep handling appeals through November, that's what it'll take.
Speaker:So I guess we'll see.
Speaker:They also discussed the appeal process, which basically you can go online, you can do
Speaker:it, you can email them, you can call them.
Speaker:It's fairly simple.
Speaker:Of course, there were some people that said that they went through that initial appeals
Speaker:process and were not happy with the results.
Speaker:And so they're going to go to the next step.
Speaker:They talked about tax relief measures like the local option sales tax, also known as
Speaker:LOST, which that does help offset property taxes.
Speaker:They also talked about SPLOST, the special purpose local option sales tax, which has
Speaker:nothing to do with property tax.
Speaker:Having been on that side of it, projects are put together, they're approved, and then
Speaker:that's exactly what that tax is used for.
Speaker:I think it was even brought up that maybe if they need to buy a new fire engine and
Speaker:that's not in the budget, that's where SPLOST comes in, things like that.
Speaker:Again, residents were encouraged to appeal their assessments, also engage with
Speaker:legislators. There's potentially new property tax law, a proposed bill that would cap
Speaker:assessment increases to, I believe, 3 percent.
Speaker:And of course, the meeting highlighted the need for transparency, community
Speaker:involvement, accountability from local officials, which there's a lot of people that
Speaker:don't believe we're getting accountability from local officials.
Speaker:I will say that if you were someone who did not attend and you did watch the live
Speaker:stream, I'm not knocking anybody's technical capabilities, but it was definitely hard to
Speaker:understand anybody talking on the live stream.
Speaker:They were not properly mic'd, they were not properly set up.
Speaker:And I would think that in the future, they might be able to do a little better if
Speaker:they're a little bit more prepared.
Speaker:So what we did is took the audio and tried to enhance it a little bit, tried to get rid
Speaker:of some of the room noise, tried to bring the voice levels up.
Speaker:Also did the same thing with the audio, I mean, the video rather.
Speaker:Took that video, tried to sweeten up that audio, make it where you could hear it.
Speaker:But we also did closed caption for the video.
Speaker:It's not perfect.
Speaker:There's only so much artificial intelligence machine learning can do with crap audio.
Speaker:But we did our best.
Speaker:So those are at tiftontalks.com if you want to go there, you can listen to the audio,
Speaker:you can watch the video.
Speaker:The audio has also been released as a bonus episode for the Tifton Talks podcast.
Speaker:So if you do subscribe to that, it should have already shown up in your feed as a
Speaker:bonus episode.
Speaker:About a week or so ago, we released a survey where we asked a few questions of people,
Speaker:particularly or specifically about property taxes.
Speaker:As of the recording of this episode, we have received 210 responses.
Speaker:And so here are the questions.
Speaker:We first started out wanting to make sure that you had received your property tax
Speaker:assessment. I mean, I know it sounded like a dumb question.
Speaker:Why would you answer these questions if you had not received it?
Speaker:Believe it or not, 99.5% said, yeah, we've received it.
Speaker:So I don't know what happened to the the the one that said no.
Speaker:Why? I probably shouldn't have even put that question there.
Speaker:But anyway. All right.
Speaker:So the next question was, do you pay city of Tifton property taxes?
Speaker:The reason why I asked this question is I was trying to differentiate between people
Speaker:that live in the city and people that live in the county.
Speaker:Sixty four point three percent of the 210 responses said they live in the city.
Speaker:Basically, they pay city property tax.
Speaker:Thirty five point seven percent said no.
Speaker:So that means they live in the county.
Speaker:Did your property taxes go up or down?
Speaker:Ninety eight point six percent said that they went up.
Speaker:One point four percent or three of the respondents said property taxes went down.
Speaker:So the next question was, if your property tax assessment went up, what range would you
Speaker:say? And of course, I said, don't answer this question if your property taxes went down.
Speaker:So out of the 210, we got 205 responses.
Speaker:Forty two percent of those responses said their property taxes, their assessment went up
Speaker:75 percent or more.
Speaker:And that that tracks with what a lot of people were saying in the meeting, that it
Speaker:either doubled or I've heard some folks say tripled.
Speaker:Thirty two point two percent said 50 to 75 percent.
Speaker:Twenty one point five percent said 25 to 50 percent.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:Nine or four point four percent of the respondents said it only went up by about 25
Speaker:percent. So the next question was, did your market value go up or down on the assessment?
Speaker:Ninety two point nine percent said the market value went up seven point one percent.
Speaker:Fifteen respondents said that the market value went down.
Speaker:Next question I asked, were you aware of the homeowner tax relief credit or the
Speaker:H.T.R.G.
Speaker:That should have shown up on your 2023 property tax bill?
Speaker:Sixty eight point six percent said no.
Speaker:That was one hundred and forty four out of 210 responses said no.
Speaker:Thirty one point four percent said yes.
Speaker:Now, the thing that I think you need to keep in mind is I believe I'm correct on
Speaker:this. So if I'm incorrect and you know that I'm incorrect, then please let me know.
Speaker:And apologies.
Speaker:You only got this credit if you took the Homestead exemption.
Speaker:It was for people with the Homestead exemption, which, by the way, we've seen a lot
Speaker:of people complain about they got the Homestead exemption, but it didn't help.
Speaker:Per state law, the standard home exemption is only two thousand dollars off of the
Speaker:forty percent valuation that your property taxes are assessed on.
Speaker:So it's something, but it's not a whole lot.
Speaker:I think that equates to roughly about six, somewhere between 60 and 100 dollars off.
Speaker:Then we had the we had some comments and out of the 210 respondents, 42 people left
Speaker:comments. So I want to go through these real quick.
Speaker:And they kind of they kind of echoed what was what was said, somewhat said at the
Speaker:meeting. Seems like they just pulled numbers out of the blue, just double the market
Speaker:value. Home is for sale.
Speaker:New value is seventy thousand dollars over the highest offer I got.
Speaker:Then we got some that were very lengthy.
Speaker:This assessment was completely inaccurate.
Speaker:My house is in need of over ten thousand dollars worth of repairs.
Speaker:I also have several acres under Georgia Power easement, which is useless land.
Speaker:This easement land is not reflected by any lower millage rate.
Speaker:The flood maps in Tift County are literally a joke.
Speaker:I have pictures of 60 to 80 percent of my property underwater.
Speaker:Quote, anywhere from six inches to four feet of water, end quote, with timestamps
Speaker:showing three consecutive years of flooding.
Speaker:This flooding is due to the Tift County Road Department blatantly ignoring the lack of
Speaker:drainage my property has due to the grossly undersized culvert pipes for the named
Speaker:creek that flows through 80 percent of my property and under the so-called county
Speaker:maintained road.
Speaker:I will attest these completely ridiculous assessments.
Speaker:And if no significant changes are made, I will seek an office with the next election
Speaker:so that citizens can be shown support and representation in a manner that is
Speaker:respectable and with morals rather than being enslaved by this corrupt government.
Speaker:All right. Next comment.
Speaker:How can someone who gets Social Security benefits pay for this increase?
Speaker:Twenty twenty three from fifty three, three, forty six to one hundred and sixteen,
Speaker:eight, twenty four, 40 percent assessed, thirty four, five and forty five cents.
Speaker:So I guess I think they're saying their taxes are now three thousand four hundred
Speaker:five dollars and forty five cents.
Speaker:Next comment.
Speaker:Assessed market value went up to a close match to the Zillow and Reefi offer
Speaker:estimate value. So the change is only surprising because the assessors finally got
Speaker:around to doing the adjustment.
Speaker:I've been expecting such an increase for years.
Speaker:I think that's about the only I wouldn't say positive, but comment that actually went
Speaker:the other way. Next comment.
Speaker:Something needs to be done or taxes went up to two thousand dollars or went up two
Speaker:thousand dollars. Rather, this is beyond ridiculous.
Speaker:People will think twice about moving to Tifton.
Speaker:I am a widow. My house is in need of repairs.
Speaker:I can't afford this increase.
Speaker:Next comment. My property assessment was over 200 percent ridiculous.
Speaker:No improvements have been made to justify this type of increase.
Speaker:Next comment. I was told my tax bill would be going down because I'm over sixty five,
Speaker:but it went up. How did that happen?
Speaker:Next is we need help.
Speaker:This will raise homeowners insurance and then we'll raise mortgage payments.
Speaker:We can barely pay our bills now.
Speaker:Tell the homeless to scoot over.
Speaker:More are coming.
Speaker:Next, it was more than doubled since last year.
Speaker:This is nuts.
Speaker:Next, we are senior citizens and we had to pay with a credit card last year and have
Speaker:no idea what we will do this year.
Speaker:I understand Georgia has low income tax breaks for people over 64 who whose net
Speaker:income is below 4000.
Speaker:We will try for that, plus many areas that need replacing.
Speaker:Bear in mind, I'm reading these pretty much verbatim, so if they don't make sense,
Speaker:it's not me.
Speaker:Next one was recall elections.
Speaker:One after that was my concern is the possibility of people losing their homes
Speaker:because they simply won't be able to afford this ridiculous increase.
Speaker:Maybe not for everyone, but for a lot of homeowners, a 200 dollar or more a month
Speaker:mortgage increase payment is a tough pill to swallow.
Speaker:It's a huge punch to the gut for a lot of people.
Speaker:For those on fixed income, the increase will have a huge impact as if rent in Tifton
Speaker:isn't already ridiculously high.
Speaker:It's about to get ridiculously higher.
Speaker:We have a few properties in Tifton, many doubled and one even went up 300 percent.
Speaker:Next one is we haven't made improvements since the last assessment and we don't
Speaker:have any extra county services.
Speaker:We can't even get good internet.
Speaker:Ridiculous taxes are going to force people out.
Speaker:So if that's true, then that means that they've not made any they've not made any
Speaker:improvements on their property over the last 20 years.
Speaker:And that could be true.
Speaker:That could be true.
Speaker:We've lived in our property since 2006, and honestly, we've not made any
Speaker:improvements. I think we painted one time and that's been it.
Speaker:Oh, I did replace the upstairs air conditioner.
Speaker:Had to. It died.
Speaker:That was back in 2012, 2013.
Speaker:Oh, and a new roof in 2015 after the hail came in.
Speaker:All right. Next question.
Speaker:Comment rather. I don't know why I keep saying question.
Speaker:Anyway, life is hard enough with everything going up.
Speaker:So do the right thing and lower the taxes, please, with a little prayer hands.
Speaker:Next one says we pay taxes on the money that we use to improve our property.
Speaker:I have no children in the school system.
Speaker:We still continue to pay that tax.
Speaker:My husband and I are over 65 and for the life of me, I can't understand, I think is
Speaker:what they meant, why we are required to pay school tax.
Speaker:Many counties have eliminated that tax for the elderly.
Speaker:Our roads are awful all over the city and the county.
Speaker:Not sure how the spouse money is used, nor do I think our city and county officials
Speaker:use our tax money wisely.
Speaker:I could go on and on.
Speaker:That is a good question.
Speaker:See, I understand why, even as someone who my children did not, we they were not in
Speaker:the Tift County school system.
Speaker:We homeschooled and they have all gone off to great careers.
Speaker:So at what point do you stop funding that?
Speaker:If you're over 65, should you continue to fund that?
Speaker:I don't know. The entire purpose of funding the school system is it's for the greater
Speaker:good, you know, rising tides, raise all boats kind of mentality.
Speaker:But is there a point at a certain age should you be, I don't know, let off the hook, so
Speaker:to speak, for having to contribute to that?
Speaker:I mean, I'm of the mindset that once you hit 65, you should no longer pay property tax
Speaker:at all. So I think I can go along with no property tax and.
Speaker:No, no funding of the the school, so no property tax wipes all that out, none
Speaker:whatsoever, because there's a lot of retired people after 65, they're only going to be
Speaker:able to live on Social Security.
Speaker:That is a fixed income.
Speaker:And we already have other issues surrounding Social Security.
Speaker:And I'm not going to get into that in this episode because that's that's not even for
Speaker:this podcast. But I think it would be a wise move that if you're over the age of 65 and
Speaker:you own property, there should be no property tax.
Speaker:It's just my opinion. Next one said no changes made to home to affect value and double
Speaker:taxes are ridiculous.
Speaker:I can understand them going up, but not doubling in one year.
Speaker:People over 70 should not have to pay school taxes.
Speaker:Any tax relief will help on fixed income and cannot afford 3000 plus taxes.
Speaker:The house isn't worth one hundred and thirty thousand dollars can't afford to pay
Speaker:this. My property is outside the city limits.
Speaker:Forest Lakes area. I paid same amount last year as the previous year.
Speaker:No credits.
Speaker:I'm enrolled in the senior low income homestead program and my tax is tripled.
Speaker:How is this possible?
Speaker:We can't afford this.
Speaker:We can't afford this.
Speaker:Do not know what we're going to do.
Speaker:Next one says we just purchased our home in October of last year and had it appraised
Speaker:for our property taxes to go up more in less than a year is ridiculous.
Speaker:When we already pay a large amount, homeowners will not be able to afford more than we
Speaker:already pay because of the cost of living.
Speaker:Our government is out of control.
Speaker:There's no way the value of my house is what they say.
Speaker:I tried to sell it two years ago for less than the value they placed on it.
Speaker:Never got an offer.
Speaker:Oh, my favorite comment in a.
Speaker:I did not make the comments mandatory, but OK.
Speaker:In a how do we find out what improvements or extras like a patio are being counted?
Speaker:You probably have to get with the assessors, the tax assessor's office.
Speaker:Next one is I do pay county but not city.
Speaker:Millage should be set and real tax liability notices sent prior to appeal period
Speaker:ending in Tift County should go back to December due date.
Speaker:OK, that one did bring up an interesting, interesting question or, you know, thought
Speaker:they can't now moving it back to December.
Speaker:Has it ever been December?
Speaker:Honestly, I don't know.
Speaker:But OK, that's cool.
Speaker:But the millage being set and the real tax liability notices sent out prior to the
Speaker:appeal period doesn't make sense.
Speaker:Number one, the budget for the city and I'm presuming for the county has to go in, has
Speaker:to be approved and go into effect starting July 1st.
Speaker:That's when the fiscal year starts.
Speaker:Back when I first started working for the city, the fiscal year started October 1st,
Speaker:but it got moved to July to align with the way the state does it.
Speaker:And I'm pretty sure that's probably the way a lot of municipalities and county
Speaker:governments and states do it.
Speaker:So July 1st fiscal year.
Speaker:So they already have a budget that's approved and has to be executed starting July 1st.
Speaker:That's the reason why they cannot go ahead and set the millage rate, because they it's
Speaker:a chicken and egg type thing.
Speaker:The budget has to be approved and set.
Speaker:Then they have to get through any appeals.
Speaker:Then they have to figure out what the millage rates are going to be to match what the
Speaker:budget is. So there you go.
Speaker:That's the reason why in my very lackluster, layman explanation, the way I understand it
Speaker:is the reason why it can't be done the way this commenter said.
Speaker:Next comment said, "I bought this house in October 2022 and the property taxes are sky
Speaker:high. I live off of Social Security and Medicare, and this goes way beyond my means."
Speaker:Another one says, "I filed and was approved for Homestead earlier this year, which
Speaker:should have kept my property taxes at least at last year's rate.
Speaker:So why did my taxes go up?
Speaker:This makes no sense." I do not believe that's the way that works.
Speaker:I could be incorrect, but filing Homestead does not or does it?
Speaker:I'll leave that one out there.
Speaker:There's something tickling my brain that says that might be true.
Speaker:But also based on what I read, again, the Homestead exemption only takes two thousand
Speaker:dollars off of the 40 percent assessed value.
Speaker:And it has to be done before April 1st before it affects this year's taxes.
Speaker:If it's after April 1st, then it will affect next year's taxes.
Speaker:Another one says, "I had an appraisal done one year before and it was a hundred
Speaker:thousand dollars less than the county appraisal." OK, that one does make you
Speaker:wonder. I was told our land value increased by thirty seven thousand dollars and our
Speaker:home improvement value increased by another hundred and thirteen thousand.
Speaker:Our home is almost 50 years old.
Speaker:Fifty. We cleared the land and painted the front door.
Speaker:I can list oodles of repairs needed, including but not limited to windows, roof,
Speaker:AC unit, etc.
Speaker:Big ticket items.
Speaker:One hundred and fifty thousand dollar increase.
Speaker:Show me where.
Speaker:This is ridiculous.
Speaker:The way this process was handled is why most people are frustrated and caused undue
Speaker:stress on people, especially those on fixed income.
Speaker:As senior citizens, I have no idea how we're supposed to pay this amount.
Speaker:Next to the last comment, "A lot of people are going to lose their homes.
Speaker:A lot. The poor are really getting poorer.
Speaker:Corporate buyouts and kickbacks are in the future."
Speaker:"Bunch of homes are going to be sold on the courthouse steps.
Speaker:Not a conspiracy theory, but just simply reality."
Speaker:"Harold, but I think they meant Hayward-Becton, gave the citizens a song and dance
Speaker:show and Julie Smith seems a little more interested than supposedly helping out the
Speaker:citizens of Tifton and Tift County."
Speaker:"And Julie Smith seems a little bit more interested than supposedly helping out the
Speaker:citizens of Tifton and Tift County."
Speaker:I don't know what that statement meant.
Speaker:"She's watching which way the wind is going to blow.
Speaker:Tiftonites need to form a group to confront our local and state representatives.
Speaker:Mr. Becton acts like there is really nothing to be done.
Speaker:The handwriting is on the wall.
Speaker:Be better moving to a neighboring county.
Speaker:Tifton is not the friendly city anymore."
Speaker:And I believe this is the last comment out of our 42 responses.
Speaker:"I believe I missed out on the HTGR credit because our property was only valued at 18K
Speaker:in '22 and went up to 143 in 2023.
Speaker:Do you think I could get reimbursed?"
Speaker:I personally do not know the answer to that.
Speaker:I'm going to say I think the answer is no.
Speaker:But so that's the 42 responses out of the 210 responses overall of the survey that we
Speaker:did starting about a week and a half ago.
Speaker:So 42 folks, technically only 41 because of the N/A.
Speaker:I mean, come on.
Speaker:What is N/A?
Speaker:You didn't have to say anything.
Speaker:I did reach out to Hayward Becton to see, and I pretty much knew what the answer was
Speaker:going to be.
Speaker:And this is not being derogatory toward him.
Speaker:I reached out via email to see if he'd be willing to come on the podcast so that he
Speaker:and I could have a one-on-one where I could ask him the questions.
Speaker:Maybe we could get some clarification and he could explain exactly the process and why
Speaker:we are where we are instead of, you know, in a forum where there's less people very
Speaker:passionate and rightfully so, aka, I mean, there's no way to say it, pissed off about
Speaker:this entire scenario.
Speaker:Because I have questions, too.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:From 2003 to 2023, and he says, "I think the process started in 2022."
Speaker:I understand the ratio.
Speaker:I get that.
Speaker:But at some point when you start seeing the ratio trending one way or the other, why
Speaker:not go ahead and start moving then?
Speaker:And I get it.
Speaker:I think any level-headed person will understand that the pandemic did a number on
Speaker:everybody.
Speaker:Everybody.
Speaker:Houses were going, I mean, everybody was staying at home.
Speaker:Everybody was doing remodeling, which honestly, I'm still trying to figure that one
Speaker:out. If we were all at home and some of us were having to even, I mean, I had to reduce
Speaker:rates to some of my clients to help out during this period.
Speaker:So my income went down.
Speaker:I don't know how people were doing remodeling, but OK.
Speaker:But I heard literally in Ben Hill County, of all places, which is where I'm originally
Speaker:from, I heard homes that were before the pandemic would have appraised for, say,
Speaker:$150,000 were literally being sold for $350,000, almost $400,000.
Speaker:That's ridiculous.
Speaker:And we know at some point, we figure we're going to see a course correction in that type
Speaker:of thing. So we're all victims of the pandemic when it comes to the way property just
Speaker:escalated. And so I know governments don't have a crystal ball.
Speaker:I know that Mr. Becton doesn't have a crystal ball.
Speaker:But at some point when you start seeing it trend, you know, you may want to start
Speaker:shooting up the flares and saying, OK, we got to do something here.
Speaker:Ultimately, I think it's all going to settle out.
Speaker:Probably not to everyone's liking.
Speaker:I get that.
Speaker:Even the mayor pointed out that when they roll back the millage to take some of the
Speaker:bite out of this, which they pretty much have to, it's still going to go up.
Speaker:It may only go up by $500 to $1,000, but it's still going to go up.
Speaker:So we'll see. I don't know.
Speaker:If you haven't completed the survey and you still want to, you can go to
Speaker:tiftontalks.com.
Speaker:There is a one of the articles on there.
Speaker:You can find it. You can search.
Speaker:You can do the survey there.
Speaker:Like I said, as of today, we're sitting at 210 responses and we're almost two weeks
Speaker:into this. If you have any insight or even comments that you don't want to do on the
Speaker:survey or maybe you've already done the survey and you want to share, you can email
Speaker:info@tiftontalks.com and I might share it in an upcoming podcast episode or maybe an
Speaker:article posted on Tifton Talks.
Speaker:I will not use your name unless you absolutely say, yeah, use my name.
Speaker:I don't care. I want people to know it's me.
Speaker:Then, you know, I will.
Speaker:But I am I'm curious how everybody's dealing with this.
Speaker:And all I can say is let's let cooler heads prevail.
Speaker:I cannot imagine the stress that Hayward Becton and the people in his office are under
Speaker:right now. I would not want that job.
Speaker:You could not pay me enough to do that job, especially right now.
Speaker:But keep just just keep this in mind.
Speaker:They are human beings, too.
Speaker:They are human beings, too.
Speaker:They have the they have the daily stresses in their lives.
Speaker:They have families.
Speaker:They don't need to put up with your BS.
Speaker:So be civil.
Speaker:You can be forceful.
Speaker:You can you can be convinced, but you just you need to be you need to be honorable and
Speaker:don't take it out on them.
Speaker:Follow the process.
Speaker:You may not like the process.
Speaker:I may not like the process, but follow the process.
Speaker:Let it run its course.
Speaker:And just, you know, keep in mind, we're in this community together.
Speaker:These are our these are our neighbors.
Speaker:We all got to live together.
Speaker:We'll get over this hump.
Speaker:I'm, you know, trying to be optimistic.
Speaker:We got so many other things going on in this world, this country right now.
Speaker:And I need to hold on to that little little shred of optimism.
Speaker:As I said, share your thoughts.
Speaker:Info at TiftonTalks.com.
Speaker:Or if you just like to send a text, we have a text line 229-234-1307.
Speaker:That text line is shared with Tifton Talks and Radio Tift.
Speaker:So I'd love to I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker:Let me know your thoughts and feelings about pretty much.
Speaker:I think I know what they're going to be, as we've already seen from the town hall
Speaker:meeting.
Speaker:But again, like I say, let's be civil about this.
Speaker:Let's keep our, you know, cooler heads about us and we'll get through it.
Speaker:Hopefully, I feel like we will.
Speaker:Again, optimism.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's going to be it for this episode.
Speaker:Thank you for taking the time to listen.
Speaker:Always check out TiftonTalks.com.
Speaker:If you're not subscribed to the Tifton Talks newsletter, then I would encourage
Speaker:you to do so.
Speaker:I try to send that out once a week.
Speaker:And you can subscribe by going to TiftonTalks.substack.com or you can go to
Speaker:TiftonTalks.com and there's a link at the top.
Speaker:You can click the newsletter link and go there, put in your email address and you
Speaker:will get usually about once a week, some info that hopefully you enjoy, you find
Speaker:informative and sometimes entertaining.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So until next time, I have not done these episodes as frequently as I wanted to.
Speaker:I'm trying to get back up on the horse and do that.
Speaker:But until next time, I have been Donovan Adkisson and this has been the Tifton
Speaker:Talks podcast produced by Tifton Media Works.
Speaker:Everybody take care.
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