Grovetown Finance Director Bradley Smith told the city council that the town is in “good financial shape” before council members approved rolling back the millage rate from 7.62 to 7.313 mills, the first change in the rate since 2020, on Monday evening.
The budget for this year, adopted in May, is still viable with the rollback of the millage rate, which is used to assess the local property tax, because “the amount that was budgeted actually ended up equaling the amount that was the rollback,” Smith said.
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He noted the rollback should still allow the city to collect “roughly” the amount of last year’s funds, with the caveat that, largely due to the city’s growth, Grovetown will see “buildings come online “that were not captured in the in the millage rate proposal that we received from the Columbia County tax commissioner.”
Before the council unanimously voted to approve the first reading of amendments to the 2023-2024 Annual Balanced Budget, Smith told council members that the city is expecting some $122,000 increase in expenses, mostly from engineering for the train depot project— “it’s not anything that we’re doing more of, it’s just we have a large project on one hand and that’s where a lot of that comes through,”—alongside maintenance and repair projects throughout the city, and advertising for events such as the recent fireworks show at Liberty Park.
Smith also said that a large portion of this expense adjustment will be offset by the $330,000 contingency fund.
Among other new business during Monday night’s meeting was the addition of 40 hours of annual leave for each department director, accrued every Jan. 1 and again on July 1.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
