Voters will have a number of questions to mull this election season, possibly including two from the Hall County Board of Commissioners.

At Tuesday's work session, Commissioner Bobby Banks said he would like to see what residents think about combining the Gainesville and Hall County fire departments.

"Personally I am for it," Banks said. "It'll cut down on duplicate services."

The other commissioners were open to the idea, though county staff warned that merging city and county services has been unsuccessfully put to vote in the past.

"We've been down this road before," County
Attorney Bill Blalock said.

Assistant County Administrator Phil Sutton said the county has had a referendum about combining city and county services on four occasions over the last 30 years.

Sutton said the last referendum was in 1997.

"They actually went forward and had a fairly lengthy study of what it would be to merge services," Sutton said.

Sutton said there is one major reason that city and county services have not merged before.

"The real big issue is always doing something with the very different and very complicated benefit programs," Sutton said.

"It's very, very, very complicated. And it's not always that obvious where the cost savings are and it's not always immediate."

Hall County Fire Chief David Kimbrell said he would not mind a nonbinding referendum.

"I have personal opinions, pros and cons," Kimbrell said. "The commission wants to look at it and see what the voters think."

The commission is also looking at once again putting biannual property tax collections on the ballot.

The question was first proposed to voters in a nonbinding referendum in November 2008 and nearly 70 percent of voters answered they would prefer to pay taxes twice a year.

But in late 2009, commissioners were ready to approve Oct. 1 and Dec. 1 due dates when they learned that state law would require a 5 percent penalty if the first installment is not paid by the Oct. 1 due date.

The commissioners decided to delay collecting twice a year because they weren't convinced it would be in the best interest of taxpayers.

The commissioners are now looking at putting a referendum on the ballot that would clearly explain the mandatory due dates and penalties required by state law if the county goes to bi-annual collections.

"I think there was some confusion," Commissioner Steve Gailey said. "Let's do it the right way and we can put it to rest."

Chairman Tom Oliver said he will vote against collecting taxes twice a year regardless.

"We could vote not to do it, that's the best thing we could do," Oliver said. "I'd vote to not even put it on the ballot."

The commissioners will discuss the ballot questions further at their next work session before voting on them July 8.