The Columbia County Board of Commissioners will hold its first of three millage hearings today.
The county is proposing a slight rollback of the millage rate to 4.895 from 5.147. County Manager Scott Johnson previously told The Augusta Press the county has rolled back the millage rate for the past seven out of eight years, and that one year, it was kept the same instead of rolled back.
“We are looking to roll the millage rate back this year a quarter mill,” Johnson said. “Now the rollback rate…the rollback rate is a calculated rate that is computed based on how the digest grows and as the digest grows, the percentage of that increase is inputted into this calculation to say what the millage rate should be. So, it produces an artificial millage rate to say that for taxes to remain the exact same because of the growth in the digest or the increase in property you would have to lower taxes this amount of money to keep taxes the exact same. The rollback rate for Columbia County is 4.642, which is about half a mill lower than we are currently now. So, we’re looking at rolling the millage rate back halfway to the rollback rate. That’s how we came to the current number we have, which is a quarter mill tax decrease.”
As for why the county is proposing a rate halfway to the full rollback rate, Johnson said the county looked at several factors, including sales tax.
“When you look at all your sources of income, one of the things that really offset property taxes in Columbia County is sales tax because we have LOST, the local option sales tax, and our LOST is coming in pretty flat,” Johnson said. “I think one thing we have to be very careful of is if we roll the property tax millage rate all the way back to the rollback rate or beyond, eventually you’re going to roll the property tax millage rate back to close to zero, so you have no property taxes coming in.”
Even though the county is advertising a rollback of 4.895, Johnson said that is subject to change depending on what action the Board of Commissioners takes.
“We’re having millage rate hearings and when we’re having those hearings the board of commissioners can do anything they want to do with the rate, they can leave it the exact same, they could reduce it more, but what they can’t do is they can’t raise it any higher than it currently is.”
Because the county is not rolling back to the full rollback rate, it must be advertised as an increase according to Georgia law “when in reality we are actually lowering taxes,” Johnson said.
The hearings for the Columbia County millage rate will be Aug. 1 at 5:45 p.m., Aug. 8 at 8:30 a.m. and Aug. 15 at 6 p.m. The millage rate will be set after the Aug. 15 hearing. All three hearings will take place in the auditorium at the Evans Government Center.
The Grovetown City Council approved keeping the millage rate at 7.62 mills during a called meeting on July 26. The approval followed three public hearings on the matter.
The Harlem City Council approved keeping the same millage rate the same at 9.35 mills during the regular meeting on July 24.
The Columbia County Board of Education has held two of its three public hearings. The school district is advertising a millage rate of 17.35 mills, which is the same as last year. The third public hearing will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 8 at 6 p.m. during the BOE meeting. Following this hearing, board members will set the millage rate for 2023.
Stephanie Hill is a staff writer covering Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
