The City of Grovetown held the first of three scheduled public millage rate hearings Wednesday evening at Grovetown City Hall, in which finance director Bradley Smith explained that there’s currently no plan to either increase or roll back the present rate.
“The mayor and council along with the staff are proposing that we maintain our current millage rate of 7.62 mills,” said Smith at Wednesday’s hearing, part of a presentation to the attending public, which was also streamed online.
The city has maintained this rate since 2020, having rolled it back from an increase to eight mills in 2019. Grovetown increased its millage rate to eight mills, an increase from a year before.
Property taxes are assessed by multiplying the millage rate by the assessed value of a home, which is 40% of the appraised value.
Smith clarified the millage rate process to attending residents with the example of a home appraised at $160,000.
“So, 40% of $160,000 is $64,000,” he said. “We multiply that by 7.62 mills, so to do that you would change that decimal from 7.62 to .00762, times $64,000 equals $488 annually.”
The finance director also explained that the millage rate proposal only affects the city’s general fund, the revenue for which is roughly $13.7 million. The property tax, like the local option sales tax, represents 29% of the city’s general fund revenue.
However, property taxes are Grovetown’s only major source of general fund revenue over which the city council has control.
Smith mentioned the city’s announcement that Grovetown citizens would see a 14.09% increase in taxes, stressing that this is not the result of any proposed change in the millage rate (as there isn’t one), but of an increase in the total assessment of all properties in Grovetown.
“Recall last year we had over 200 homes added to the total assessment of all properties in Grovetown,” he said. “That total assessment went up very fast and it has nothing to do with the homes that were already here.”
He also acknowledged that homes in town have had an increase in appraised value over the past year.
“There’s a combination factor here that is contributing to both of them,” Smith said.
In fielding questions from the audience, Smith also noted that the city spent some $75,000 on roughly 13 public events—such as the Summer Jam and the Fourth of July Barbecue—last fiscal year, out of a budget set aside for it of about $12 million; and that it spends approximately $147,000 yearly for employee retirement.
The next public millage rate hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, July 26 at 10 a.m., and the final one will be the same date, at 6 p.m., after which the special called city council meeting to adopt the millage rate will immediately follow.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
