When Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jevin Jensen looked at the county’s accomplishments in 2023, at the top of his list was a tax cut.
“We were able to reduce the millage rate for the fourth year in a row, one of the things I’m super proud of. It’s a big teamwork effort,” he said during a recent commissioners meeting. “I definitely mean ‘we’ because it’s our citizens, it’s our staff at the county, our county employees and, of course, the commissioners.”
The commissioners voted in August to reduce the county’s maintenance and operations (M&O) property tax rate to 6 mills from 7.3 mills in 2022.
One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value.
Jensen said he was also proud the county received $7.3 million in grants, some $1 million more than in 2022.
“That number was probably only $1 million three or four years ago,” Jensen said. “We’ve really made a lot of progress in those grants, and that’s money we don’t have to take from our local taxpayers, so that’s great.”
He also noted that state officials approved the county’s latest five-year plan.
“We exceeded our 29-mile (paving goal by providing funding for 30 miles),” he said. “I don’t know if that’s an all-time record, but certainly in the last few years I don’t think we’ve paved or resurfaced anywhere near 29 miles. We continue to push that, and maybe we will do more than 30 next year. In addition to those miles, we re-striped 45 miles of county roads.”
Jensen said after the meeting the county completed 24 miles of paving. Weather interfered with completing the final six miles before the end of the year.
“Another six miles were funded by commissioners which were prepared for resurfacing already by public works,” he said. “We are just awaiting the daily temperatures to rise to finish those final miles. In the meantime, we are working on pothole tickets and clearing drains and ditches along roads to reduce stormwater issues.”
Jensen said the county also made strides in economic development.
“We’ve got two big expansions finished or nearly finished in (the Carbondale Business Park),” he said. “Qcells finished their expansion and their hiring and Essentia Protein, I expect they’ll begin their hiring soon.”
Qcells added two gigawatts of solar capacity to its Dalton plant. That brings the factory’s output to more than 5.1 gigawatts. It also added 510 jobs.
Qcells said its Dalton factory is the largest solar manufacturing plant of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, manufacturing nearly 30,000 solar panels a day.
Essentia Protein Solutions says it has invested some $80 million in its facility and will create 80 jobs. They will have a cooking operation that will create broth for food companies.
Jensen noted that work has begun on a FIFA-sized soccer field at Westside Park. FIFA is an international governing body for soccer. This will be the fifth FIFA-sized field in Whitfield County.
Jensen said the county also took over the senior center and expanded services. Previously, the senior center was jointly funded by the county and the city of Dalton and operated by the city.