Augusta commissioners voted Tuesday to leave 2021 property tax rates the same as last year rather than roll them back because a rollback would create an estimated $1 million shortfall in next year’s budget.
Commissioners will now have to advertise a property-tax increase and hold three public hearings before adopting the millage Aug. 19.
Only Commissioner Sean Frantom spoke in favor of the rollback.
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“The citizens, some of them are going to have a tax increase because that’s what it is,” he said. “For some whose property got reassessed,bit’s going to be a tax increase. That’s what it is, and that’s what we have to promote it as.”
His motion for the rollback died for lack of a second.
Augusta Finance Director Donna Williams made a strong case against a rollback.
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“That rollback rate will collect approximately a million less than we have budgeted to collect because we budgeted at staying even, assuming that the digest was going to grow enough to offset any rollback that was required,” Williams said. “It did not.
“There are a whole lot of reasons for that, but basically it was a lot of exemptions that came through. That was not enough real growth, other than the reassessment side. They make no allowances for you being able to net the two out.”
Williams’ recommendation was the same millage rate as was levied in 2020, which would allow the city to meet current budget projections for 2021 on the revenue side, she said.
Augusta’s net millage rate for the General Fund was 9.045. The computed rollback rate is 8.814 mills.
The net millage rate for the Urban Services District was 4.845. The rollback rate is 4.606 mills.
The county’s millage represents only part of property tax bills. The Richmond County Board of Education sets its millage separate, and theirs is much higher than the county’s.
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A tax rate of one mill represents a tax liability of one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value. The assessed value (40 percent of the fair market value) of a house that is worth $100,000 is $40,000.
Williams said that this is the first year in her entire career that by taking the rollback rate, the city would actually collect less money than it did in the previous year.
City Administrator Odie Donald noted that Columbia County commissioners had recently voted not to roll the millage rate back.
“I think the commission has done a great job with that,” he said. “It is definitely not a technical tax increase in keeping your millage rate the same.”
Frantom raised the issue of proposed street light fees.
“So frankly, we haven’t talked about street lights,” he said. “So we’re going to hit the citizens twice, I guess. And we’ve got $82 million in the ARP we keep talking about, and then we say we’re going to keep the tax rate flat because we’re a million dollars short. I don’t think that’s going to sit right with the community.”
Commissioner Ben Hasan said Augusta would be stalemated by the rollback and keeping the millage at 2020 levels.
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“This is the first time we have to move forward with long term benefits to advance ourselves,” he said.
Frantom asked Williams how the mill rates are determined and who determines them.
“You drop the numbers from the digest into the prescribed Excel sheets that are furnished by the state of Georgia, she said. “And you have no opportunity for changes from these numbers. You drop in the digest, and it spits out what they are.”
Having rejected the rollback, Augusta must issue a press release to publish a notice of intent to increase property taxes.
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The timeline the the property tax increase is:
Aug. 3: Commission sets mill rate and send to the newspaper.
Aug. 5: Newspaper publishes mill rate.
Aug. 12: First two public hearings on the tax increase.
Aug. 19: Third public hearing and commission adopts mill rates.
Sept. 15 or before: Tax commissioner mails property tax bills.
Sylvia Cooper is a Correspondent with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com.
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