The Columbia County Board of Education held the first of three millage hearings on Tuesday, July 11.
During the hearing, Superintendent Dr. Steven Flynt said the millage rate, which was 17.35 mills in 2022, has not been set for 2023 and the school board members can decided whether or not to increase, keep it the same or roll it back. The rate has been rolled back for the past two years, he added.
“First from 18.3 to 18.1 and then the next year a little larger decrease to 17.35,” Flynt said. “So far, you’ve had two consecutive years of lowering that. Now, as a reminder being in that growing county, our budget is going to continue to increase because of the need to service more students. This year’s budget, typically we’ve been around five to 10%. Last year we sat at right about 10, this year’s budget was built on a 10% increase and the 2023, if we left it at 17.35 mills, you see that would result in a 12.72% increase, 10 of that is already built into the budget.”
Flynt added that approximately 22% of the increase in the digest is from growth in the county. If the millage rate remains at 17.35, that would equate a digest growth of $3.2 million from 2022.
Flynt also touched on House Bill 18 and the property tax relief grant from the state, which will reduce the assessed value of the home.
Several community members asked the school board to not raise the millage rate and to consider rolling it back. One community member said when she looked at her tax bill the school portion had increased 11.45% and that for senior citizens who are retired, the retirement pay does not increase. She asked board members to consider that retired people don’t have extra income and to consider a rollback of the millage rate.
Two other community members spoke in favor of the school board not increasing the millage rate or even rolling it back.
“Something that I haven’t heard addressed tonight is that our property values have gone up so much that we’re already increasing the amount the county is receiving,” said Laurie Taylor. “For that reason, I would like to ask you to rollback the millage rate.”
Priscilla Bence asked board members to not go up in funding for several reasons, including what she called a “lack of transparency and accessibility” that she has seen with the school district over the past two years.
“We had textbook review from January through February where parents and taxpayers could come to look at books, very limited time and very limited days over a few weeks,” Bence said. “Many of us found there was a lot of CRT (critical race theory), SEL (social, emotional learning), DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in all of the literature books that were recommend for purchase. We reviewed those from grades 6th through 12, and instead of getting a letter from the 20 pages or so that I researched, hundreds of pages of articles, I got no response from anyone, not on the board, not in administration. Instead of questioning the budget of several million dollars for those books, it was just approved. The public was totally ignored on the textbook review. On the book challenges that started a couple of years ago, a lot of pornographic, a lot of LGBTQ propagandizing literature. Very obvious, very obvious discernment, nothing like, dirty books, you’re always going to have dirty books, but I’m talking about pornographic and LGBTQ propagandizing. These books are in the library with no opt out ability of the parents.”
Dekle interrupted Bence and asked to stay on topic of the millage rate. Bence said she would encourage there not be an increase.
The second millage hearing will be held July 25 at 5:30 p.m. and the third will be held Aug. 8 at 6 p.m. Both will take place at the Columbia County Board of Education, 4781 Hereford Farm Road, Evans.
Stephanie Hill is a staff writer covering Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
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