East Point, Sandy Springs mayors talk LOST revenues as Fulton cities negotiate funding share

On this edition of “Closer Look,” Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul and East Point Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham discuss the collective grievances of Fulton County mayors in terms of how shares of the county’s local option sales tax (LOST) revenues will be divvied up.

“What the county is asking us to give up from revenues that we use from police and fire and emergency ambulance services, and the basic municipal services that we all get, would force us to either cut those services back or raise our property taxes,” Paul said. “But in East Point and Sandy Springs, we can’t do that.” 

Paul, Holiday Ingraham and other Fulton County mayors are currently negotiating with the county to raise percentages of the LOST revenues from 4.98% to between the range of 5% and 15%, with a meeting scheduled for this Friday. If no agreement can be made by the deadline of Dec. 30, the revenue will “evaporate” from the budgets of cities within Fulton County.