MARIETTA - "Unprecedented."

That's the word the county's chief tax appraiser, Phil Hogsed, uses in describing the countywide gross tax digest, which declined by 6.9 percent over the year before.

Cobb Tax Commissioner Gail Downing submitted the digest to the state department of revenue on Thursday. The agency immediately certified the digest, allowing Downing's office to bill and collect property taxes based on the digest.

The digest is the value of all real and personal property and registered vehicles in the county. The Board of Tax Assessors approved the completion of the tax digest on June 23. The amount of reduction varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Countywide, the gross digest declined by 6.9 percent.

Tax bills will be mailed on Aug. 15, and payments are due Oct. 15.

Yet despite the revenue shortfall, none of the local cities or taxing authorities in Cobb are raising their millage rates for 2010. Other counties haven't been so lucky. Cherokee County, for one, raised its millage rate to 8.298 mills from 7.703 mills this week.

Mack Henderson, who served as the county manager in the late 80s and early 90s, said Cobb has always been well-managed without large tax increases.

"It's always been a very conservatively run government," Henderson said.

But with such a decline, he said it's going to be difficult not to raise taxes.

"I think it's going to be a struggle. I don't want to see the county go downhill," he said. "Politicians do not like to raise taxes, most of them. But we may see it in the future unless the economy picks up."

Dr. Roger Tutterow, an economist with Mercer University, said many governments are slashing expenses and keeping their fingers crossed that property values improve.

"The politics of increasing millage rates just aren't terribly favorable," he said.

Tutterow is not surprised by the decline in Cobb's tax digest.

"We know that the county has been lowering assessments on a lot of residential properties. That certainly is the big driver of the reduction," he said.

Falling home prices and foreclosures have more than offset any improvements in properties. For county governments, the majority of revenue comes from property taxes.

"For decades, one of the advantages local leadership had was that as long as property values were rising at a good clip, you could reduce the millage rate and still have the actual amount of tax revenue collected go up because property values themselves were going up," he said.

But Tutterow does believe the housing market has bottomed out and will begin to improve throughout the balance of the year, though.

County chairman Tim Lee said while it's too early to tell what needs to be done to balance the county's budget for the fiscal year 2011, which starts Oct. 1, he is opposed to raising the millage next year.

Last Tuesday, the board of commissioners set the 2010 total tax rate at 9.6 mills, the same as last year.

"My goal is to balance the budget, not raise the millage rate and to minimize the impact on our residents, business community and employees," Lee said.

The only way to balance the budget without raising taxes, Lee said, is to cut expenses - either in programs, services staffing, capital projects or a combination.

"We are looking at the fees we charge for a variety of services such as recreation, facility rentals, permits, etc. Bottom line is that it is too early to tell what we will do," said Lee, who was sworn in as chairman on Tuesday.

But "everything is on the table," Lee said, even potential layoffs.