The Columbia County Board of Education called a special meeting Thursday afternoon to tentatively approve a lowered millage rate for the 2024-25 school year.
Annually, the Board of Education is tasked with deciding the millage rate for the following academic year, which affects homeowners’ property taxes and the school district’s budget.
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Preparing the next school year’s budget, board members unanimously approved to lower the millage rate for a fourth year in a row, from 17.20 mills to 17.10 mills, prior to holding future public input meetings.
A millage rate is used to calculate property taxes based on the assessed value of one’s real estate; in other words, how much taxes one pays is dependent on their home’s market value, as 1 mill equals approximately $1 per $1,000 of assessed value.
Although the millage rate can be further decreased following public input meetings, Superintendent Steven Flynt said the rate cannot be increased, thanks to the board’s tentative decision.
“The current rate of 17.20 mills is the lowest millage rate since 2012, and it is just slightly above what it was in 2000,” Flynt said.
Since property taxes make up about 40% of the district’s general fund revenue budget, this decreased millage rate will cause the school district to experience a monetary loss of almost $800,000.
However, since property values in Columbia County are on the rise, homeowners still might be paying more taxes next year, depending on their real estate value.
“You’re going to have to look at your individual property tax to know if your taxes may be going up or going down based on what your property values are, and that all comes from the tax assessor’s office and then we build our budget based on that,” Flynt said.
Flynt also said budget considerations for the upcoming academic year will include: a historic inflation rate, employee health insurance benefit requirements increasing and the conclusion of COVID relief funding, known as ESSER funding.
“For our budget, obviously we’re in a growing area, so we’re going to see a continuing influx of people and students in the area and our budget will need to continue to increase unless we’re cutting out programs,” he said. “… we’ve seen a large cliff that has decreased the funding over the last couple of years, but in addition to that, one of the largest challenges has been around health insurance for our employees.”
As public schools are required to offer the state health insurance plan for employees, a cost which has significantly increased, Flynt reported that $4.5 million of the budget would be dedicated solely to providing employee benefits.
Despite the increasing costs of operation, employment and rate of inflation, Flynt said he is not worried about the future of the school district, but is concerned about maintaining such a budget over the next several years if inflation continues to increase.
“The concern is that if we keep seeing these increases then we’re going to have to do something,” he said. “Either get additional state revenue, maximize our funding in other ways – which we’re really doing a lot of work on – or possibly see local taxes fund some of those.”
Future public input meetings regarding the millage rate will be held on July 9 at 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and on July 23 at 6 p.m. within the Columbia County Board of Education building, located at 4781 Hereford Farm Road in Evans.
For more information of last year’s millage rate, CLICK HERE.
