Ellis, McCord at odds over house liens for nonpayment of garbage bills

Former Macon Mayor C. Jack Ellis called on the interim Macon-Bibb County tax commissioner Thursday to place a moratorium on filing liens on the homes of people who are years behind on paying garbage and paving fees. But interim Tax Commissioner Wade McCord fired back that Ellis' request would be illegal.

"I think it's unfair to hard-working people, especially low- and moderate-income people who are struggling these days," Ellis said at a Thursday morning news conference. The garbage and paving fees are collected by the tax commissioner's office on behalf of the Macon-Bibb County government.

But McCord, who is Ellis' opponent in the May 24 tax commissioner race, said Ellis' request would be against the law. Language in the Macon-Bibb County code requires McCord and his staff to "treat garbage fees just like Ad-Valorem taxes," he said in a written response to Ellis' news conference. McCord said any change in the code would have to be made by county commissioners.

"Mr. Ellis probably doesn't realize that what he is proposing is illegal," McCord said. "I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt on this issue."

At his news conference, Ellis cited legal advertisements that ran in The Telegraph on March 12. Those ads serve as a notice that some Macon properties are set for sale on April 5 to satisfy property tax, garbage or pavement fees, which are assessed to a group of property owners when they contract with the county to have a street paved.

One of the listings is for a property whose owner owes a little less than $1,000 in unpaid fees that were racked up between 2012 and 2014.

The listing did not indicate which of the three fees had not been paid.

"I think it's wrong. It should stop and be suspended immediately," Ellis said of liens by the tax commissioner's office that are not related to property taxes. "Some people owe $800 and are forced to sell their property."

In his written response, McCord said Ellis is attempting to make voters think the tax commissioner's office is "selling people's houses for small amounts of money."

But McCord said Macon-Bibb County is millions of dollars behind in collecting garbage fees.

"The past due amount of money currently owed to the county for garbage collection is currently $7 million," he said.

Not collecting the past-due money, he said, would give county commissioners three options: take the money from the general fund, raise property taxes or cut services.

Ellis said county commissioners could decide how to handle collections if the liens were discontinued.

Ellis, who was Macon's mayor from 1999-2007, said that if he is elected, he would collect the garbage and paving fees but would not punish anyone with liens for nonpayment.

"This government has the resources and enough people to be able to collect garbage fees," Ellis said.

Since Dec. 1, 2009, of the roughly 4,200 homes with liens placed on them, just 41 of the liens -- or 1 percent -- were because of uncollected garbage or paving fees, McCord said.

He also said no home will be hit with a levy by his office unless the garbage or paving fees are at least three years in arrears.

"What (Ellis) doesn't tell you about is the thousands of times we avoided this situation due to the stubborn kindness and compassion of our staff," McCord said. In 2006, while Ellis was mayor, Macon government leaders decided to shift the role of garbage collection from the Macon Water Authority to the tax commissioner's office with the goal of improving the collection rate.

One of the reasons the tax commissioner was chosen for the collections was because he was able to apply liens to unpaid garbage fees.

Ellis said Thursday evening that while the tax commissioner at the time had the ability to apply the liens, Ellis was not in favor of that option.

The tax liens were "not anything I pursued, not anything that I wanted to happen," Ellis said.

Information from The Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Stanley Dunlap, call 744-4623 or find him on Twitter@stan_telegraph.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 8:11 PM with the headline "Ellis, McCord at odds over house liens for nonpayment of garbage bills ."