Sanford said he wanted to be fair to both Ellijay and East Ellijay.At a special meeting last week, the board of commissioners met to discuss a counter-offer in the Local Option Sales Tax (L.O.S.T.) negotiation with the cities of Ellijay and East Ellijay. On August 29th, Commission Chair J.C. Sanford delivered a letter to the city of Ellijay. The letter was an offer of proposed percentages for revenue received from the sales tax. In the letter Sanford offered Ellijay 6.753 percent of revenue from L.O.S.T. and East Ellijay, 3.14 percent, the county receiving the remaining 90.107 percent. Currently, Ellijay receives 17 percent, East Ellijay 10 percent, and the county, 73 percent.

Sanford’s August 29th letter initiated the negotiation process. After the process is initiated, the counties and the cities have 60 days from that time to come to a deal. If the county and the cities can not come to an agreement on the division of percentages in this sixty day period, the matter then goes to arbitration and eventually before a superior court judge.

At its September 29th meeting, the Ellijay City Council gave Mayor Al Hoyle the authority to negotiate the percentages with East Ellijay and the county. However, almost unanimously the council argued for a higher percent. Council Member Kathryn Lancey argued an increase to 20 percent. Last Friday, October 21st, the board of commissioners called a special meeting to discuss Ellijay’s response.

Sanford said he wanted to be fair to both Ellijay and East Ellijay and referred to County Attorney David Clark. Reading from the law, Clark said that each municipality must receive a share of all proceeds from the tax, where each share is based on population, per capita. Clark, though, questioned whether “share per capita,” as it’s written in the law, is based on municipality population or on the total county population.

Another legal issue that arose during the meeting was the involvement of East Ellijay in the negotiation process. According to the law, per Clark, the county’s primary legal obligation in the negotiation process is to the larger municipality, which is Ellijay. In short, this means that the county does not have to negotiate these percentages with East Ellijay. Despite this, though, Sanford said that he wanted to be fair, seemingly rejecting the prospect of eliminating East Ellijay from the negation process, although nothing has been heard from East Ellijay on the matter.

Despite the county’s claim to be fair, the county’s new proposed percentages result in a decrease in percentages for the two cities, meaning that the two cities will receive less of the revenue from the sales tax. By doing this, Post 1 Commissioner Will Beattie is concerned that the cities would be forced to raise taxes. According to an analysis by County Financial Officer Faye Harvey Gilmer County was only able to budget $627.30 per person in its FY2011, while Ellijay budgeted $1032.30 and East Ellijay, $2355.84. Harvey’s analysis seeks to justify the county’s need to receive more L.O.S.T dollars.

But, at the end of the day, the division of L.O.S.T. revenue comes down to provision of services. The county provides 17 services, where Ellijay provides 13, and East Ellijay 7.

At the end of last week’s special meeting, the board of commissioners agreed to 14 percent for Ellijay and 5 percent for East Ellijay, allocating the remaining 81 percent to the county. This will be the new offer the county sends to Ellijay and East Ellijay.

Since the negotiation process began on August 29th with the delivery of Sanford’s letter, the sixty day period is nearly over. This means that if Ellijay does not agree to the county’s new percentage offer, the process can go into arbitration at anytime. However, if Ellijay returns another counter-offer, the negation is allowed to continue.

Read about the early negotiations: L.O.S.T Cities