Millage rate hearings are gearing up to start, and members of the public will be able to voice their opinions on the rates.
Columbia County is advertising a rollback of the millage rate to 4.895, said County Manager Scott Johnson. The county has rolled back the millage rate for the past seven out of eight years, and the 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.”
While there are some cities that don’t have a property tax and instead rely on sales tax and other sources of income, that would not work for Columbia County, Johnson said.
“We’re having to be careful the way we roll it back because what we don’t want to do is put ourselves in a situation where we have to raise the millage rate,” Johnson said. “I think if we’re not careful, we’re going to find ourselves when sales tax comes in less than what is coming in now or we go into a recession or whatever the case may be, we’re going to have to increase property taxes here to maintain the same level of services. So, we’re trying to get on the front side of that and not put ourselves in the situation where we have to raise taxes.”
Estimated tax bills went out recently and Johnson said a lot of people saw their values went up, but reiterated that the bill was just an estimate because millage rates have not been set, so the amount could be less than what was on the bill.
Another factor that could lessen the bill is the Property Tax Relief Grant that Gov. Brian Kemp signed.
“The governor actually added an additional exemption this year, an $18,000 homestead exemption,” Johnson said. “For people that have the homestead exemption they’re going to take advantage of an additional $18,000 off of their assessed value, which means that the millage rate is going to be multiplied by a lower number because of that additional exemption that the governor gave. That’s not calculated on that estimated bill, so the tax bills that go out are actually going to be lower than what people got in the mail…the reality is we’re lowering taxes and your bill is going to be lower than what it shows because you have an additional exemption that’s not showing.”
With the millage rate, Johnson said it is lower than it was in 1988, which he said is “almost unheard of for a community to be able to have a millage rate lower than it was 35 years ago almost.”
When looking at the tax bill, Johnson encourages residents to really read it to see what they’re paying taxes on. He said that the Columbia County portion is a small fraction of the bill and that school taxes are 75% of the bill. He added the county has several sources of income to pay for expenses, not just property taxes.
“What the county gets is a fraction of what your actual tax bill is,” Johnson said.
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 has to 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 cities of Harlem and Grovetown are proposing to keep the millage rates the same as last year.
Harlem City Manager Debbie Moore said the city is proposing to keep the millage rate the same at 9.35 because the increase in the net digest value will give the city enough to cover expenses for this year.
“We’re on a January to December fiscal year and this amount would take care of what we’re working on now and any increases going forward, personnel issues or anything like that,” Moore said.
The City of Harlem millage rate public hearings are set for July 17 at 6 p.m., July 20 during the work session at 7 p.m. and July 24 at 7 p.m. during the regular meeting. Council members will vote on the millage rate during the regular meeting. All three hearings will take place in the Harlem Public Safety Building, 110 W. Milledgeville Road, Harlem.
The City of Grovetown is proposing to keep the millage rate at 7.62. Bradley Smith, assistant city administrator and finance director, said the main reason for keeping the rate the same as last year is because the city is continuing to grow.
“As such that comes with additional services that need to be provided, not just for the people that already live here, but we have to imagine that there are going to future annexations which could affect how our water and sewer department needs to grow to make sure so we can service those new homes, as well as maintain what we currently have,” Smith said. “Then we’ve got additional services for recreation, public safety, police and fire, it’s just a matter as you continue to grow…the idea is to tax the newcomers the same amount as the (current) so we can provide the same level of service that we’ve always been providing, it’s just on a larger level.”
The City of Grovetown’s first public hearing will be Wednesday, July 19 at 6 p.m. The second and third hearings will both be on Wednesday, July 26, one at 10 a.m. and the other at 6 p.m. Following the 6 p.m. hearing, the city will have a called meeting to vote on the millage rate. All three hearings will take place at Grovetown City Hall, 103 Old Wrightsboro Road, Grovetown.
The Columbia County School District held its first public hearing on July 11 and is advertising keeping the millage rate at 17.35. During the hearing, Superintendent Dr. Steven Flynt said the millage rate has been rolled back for the past two years.
“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.”
The second hearing is set for July 25 at 5:30 p.m. and Aug. 8 at 6 p.m. Both will take place at the Columbia County Board of Education, 4781 Hereford Farm Road, Evans.
For information on the proposed millage rates, visit the Columbia County Tax Commissioners website.
Stephanie Hill is a staff writer covering Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
