Paul Burton
With much ado—perhaps about nothing– the Fulton County Commission petitioned the Superior Court for an order allowing the county tax commissioner to issue tax bills to residents without receiving prior state approval of the county’s tax digest. However, Tax Commissioner Arthur Ferdinand didn’t believe the tax digest submitted by Chief Appraiser Roderick Conley was complete and accurate. Consequently, Ferdinand refused to certify and submit the digest to the state for approval.
The immediate consequence of Ferdinand’s decision was that Fulton County, its municipalities, Atlanta Public Schools and county Schools faced severe cash-flow shortages.
The order obtained by the County Commission prevents this operational freeze by directing the tax commissioner to issue county tax bills using last year’s millage rate combined with this year’s assessed property values. Once Ferdinand submits an acceptable tax digest for state approval, a final millage rate will be set. That opens the possibility that residents may receive a second, reconciled tax bill down the road.
This process seems arcane because it is—except for one crucial reality: the tax digest is never 100 percent accurate or complete. Observers and insiders alike understand that properties are regularly missing from the digest or misassessed due to administrative backlogs, human error or worse. For instance, the Board of Assessors is still evaluating appeals from two, three and four years ago, while consistently identifying properties that are missing or severely undervalued. It is not controversial to say that if all properties were assessed under a consistent, fair, and dispassionately applied standard, significant new revenue would flow into county coffers— perhaps on the order of $100 million!
Having spoken to experts on this issue, that conclusion is clear– but it is only part of the story.
Fulton County contains around 400,000 residential and commercial properties. It is practically impossible for a small team of humans to consistently evaluate every parcel objectively using all relevant data against an appropriate standard. As a result, broad judgments are applied across whole classes or neighborhoods. If the surrounding housing market rises 3 percent while your home’s assessed value jumps 12% without any improvements to your property, you have experienced this phenomenon firsthand.
Fulton County undoubtedly faces spending demands. The Board of Commissioners aims to expand several local programs, and it faces substantial costs at the Rice Street Jail under a federal consent decree. However, because property taxes account for roughly 85 cents of every dollar the county spends, commissioners cannot expand spending without raising property tax rates on existing landowners.
Adding to this pressure, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is championing the extension of Tax Allocation Districts (TADs) to support his Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative. Critics argue that ring-fencing this property tax growth for city redevelopment projects deprives county general funds, potentially forcing taxpayers to shoulder steep property tax hikes (on the order of 20 percent or higher) in the years ahead. And that’s on top of standard inflationary cost increases.
The County Commission must look for ways to increase revenue without over-burdening taxpayers who are already paying their fair share. With millions in potential revenue sitting uncollected from legitimately under-assessed (predominantly commercial) properties, the path for both the Commission and the Board of Assessors is clear: leverage modern technology, especially AI, to ensure equitable assessment and taxation across the entire county. Doing so would generate substantial revenue to fund operations—and perhaps even support wider community initiatives without relying on rate hikes.
Tax assessment modernization remains the low-hanging fruit that Fulton County must pursue.
Atlantan Paul Burton is a former U.S. Army officer and technology executive. He is a District 3 candidate for the Fulton County Commission. He can be reached at burtonpp@theglobalrazor.com
