In Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” there is a quote, “There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.” That should apply of the situation we now have in Grady County but should be changed to: “There is something rotten in the county of Grady.”

As our citizens are receiving their tax bills, many do not believe what has happened! A County Commissioner recently boasted that they rolled back millage rate to compensate for the increased value of the property taxes and the increase should be only two or three hundred dollars. Don’t know where he learned his math, but he needs to go back to school.

My taxes have increased a whopping 62% over last year. County taxes have increased 50%, City taxes by 31%, and both the County and City taxes were rolled back to compensate. School taxes and these were not rolled back increased 100% even though they stated it would be only at 32% increase.

This is going to really hurt the taxpayers of Grady County and put many in a financial bind. People with mortgages will have increased month payments will have substantial increases to their escrow account. Renters will pay with increased monthly payments as owners having to charge more. Businesses will pass this on to their customers to compensate for these tax increases. Senior Citizens and the retired will be hit extremely hard! Plus with the bill hitting now we will have the pleasure of paying two in one year!

Everyone I talk with all had substantial increases, so if millage rate was rolled back to keep taxes the same why the increase? The math just does not add up. We would like some explanations and why this whole scenario even occurred.

Problem with Governments at all levels they do not know how to manage expenditures, All they know is spend, spend, spend and not cut, cut, cut. Need more money just increase taxes. We have it so we are going to spend it. My Uncle, Bill Bishop, had a saying he used often, “There is not an excuse for stupidity.”

I will go one better on the one I use, “There is not an excuse for incompetence.” It is time to manage our finances at all levels to stop this and to actually bring about some tax relief. What we our dealing with is Gross Incompetence on unprecedented level.

This whole situation could have be avoided if handled properly and never should have occurred. What can you say but they have created one heck of a mess and now we the citizens of Grady County are paying for it with our hard earned dollars.

There ain’t no happy folks in Grady County!

Respectfully,

Mike Bishop