Manufacturers Oppose Electric Rate Hike

While it tabled a measure aimed at attracting manufacturers, the Cartersville City Council at its Thursday business session met with opposition from existing industry, including some of Bartow County's largest employers.

The council conducted the first reading of an ordinance that would raise the city's electric rates, citing wholesale cost increases. The proposal resulted from a late 2011 study to reapportion the costs of providing electricity to various customers, from residential to manufacturers.

Representatives of the Georgia Association of Manufacturers and local companies, including Southern Yarn Dyers, Shaw Industries, Anheuser-Busch and Linde, said Cartersville already is one of the most expensive electricity providers, The Daily Tribune News reports. Manufacturers said they oppose any type of rate increase, citing a price hike would affect their bottom lines in an already tough economic environment.

If approved, the rate change expected also to be addressed at the council's next meeting, would take effect with March 19 electric bills. City staffers had recommended changes that would affect the following customer categories:

• Residential: +0.42 percent
• Small General Service: +1.91 percent
• Small Power: -4.70 percent
• Medium Power: -4.97 percent
• Large Power: +1.77 percent
• Extra Large Power: -0.76 percent
• Economic Development: -1.99 percent
• Street Lights: +19.50 percent
• City Government: -1.97 percent

Mayor Matt Santini has said creating jobs is the biggest challenge for the city, but the council tabled a first reading of an ordinance that would increase companies' inventory tax exemption from 20 to 40 percent, beginning in 2013.

The move would mean increased reductions in property taxes for local manufacturers and businesses holding inventories of goods that were produced in Georgia. Property taxes fund education, and leaders said further discussions with Cartersville Schools were needed, the newspaper reported.

With its 10.5 percent unemployment rate, Bartow County exempts 80 percent of the three classes of inventories from property taxes. Cartersville leaders were looking to continue increasing the exemption by 20 percent a year until it reaches 100 percent.

In Cartersville's Urban Redevelopment plan, an effort to revitalize industrial areas affected by layoffs, reductions and closings, and as a result of other programs, various tax breaks are made available to manufacturers locating or expanding in certain areas. Bartow also uses tax breaks in its economic development efforts.