ATLANTA -- A feud between the Greene County Commission and Sheriff Chris Houston reached the marbled halls of the Georgia Supreme Court Monday as the seven justices tried to sort out the dispute.

The court heard 20 minutes of oral arguments from lawyers for each side, and now it will have to reach a decision within the next four or five months. At issue is whether the commission can establish a special tax district that would encompass the entire county for the purpose of linking money it collects to the sheriff's budget.

The commissioners want to have an answer to property owners who complain about why their taxes are so high since spending for the sheriff's office is the county's largest single expense, said county attorney Michael Green.

"What they intended was to be more transparent about the budget," he said. "... The sheriff was not being picked on."

Houston's lawyer said it sure feels like he's being picked on. Since the state constitution requires sheriffs to operate a jail -- including holding convicts sentenced to state prison waiting weeks for transfer by the Georgia Department of Corrections -- then Houston doesn't have much latitude about what he spends, said Brenda Trammell.

The constitution, and previous court decisions, prohibit county commissions from having unreasonable control over a sheriff's spending, she said.

Besides, the law that lets counties create special tax districts doesn't cover sheriffs, according to Charles Byrd, a lawyer for the Georgia Sheriffs Association which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Houston's behalf. The districts are designed to raise money for added government services or for limited parts of the county, he said, and a sheriff's duties are core functions of government, not extra services.

If counties are allowed to breach the separation of powers between the commission and the sheriff, then counties will next start to meddle with the county courts, Byrd warned.

"The sheriffs pay taxes, too. They don't like it," he said. "The sheriff would love there to be no jail costs."

Only three justices asked questions, all along the lines of Justice Harris Hines who expressed confusion about the commissioners' motives.

"Why do this if you don't want to control it?" he asked.

"Why pick out any single agency," asked Justice Harold Melton.

Trammell said the issue wasn't whether the commission was trying to exercise unreasonable control over Houston's budget. The issue is that it can't create the tax district at all, she said.

Greens' answer was that, historically, whatever budget the sheriff requests, the commission grants only to find the sheriff spending more than the allotted amount anyway. Such overspending is possible if the money comes from the county's general fund but not if the sheriff can only receive what is collected in the special tax district.