The Richmond County Board of Education held its first and second public millage rate hearings, Tuesday, at noon and immediately after its regular board meeting that evening, respectively.
In both hearings, school district chief financial officer Bob Smith reiterated, from the special called meeting on Aug. 7, that the district’s proposed millage rate increase for fiscal year 2025 to 18.33 would largely be to support salary increases for faculty and staff.
This includes some $8.1 million to fund a pay increase for new teachers, $2.5 million to provide a $500 retention supplement for staff at the end of the year, and pay raises for bus drivers, custodians, paraprofessionals and other employees.
Smith also explained the rollback millage rate, the rate computed, as required by Georgia law, that would produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that the previous year’s millage rate would have produced without any reassessments.
The property tax digest value—the total assessed value of all taxable properties in the county—is more than $7.3 billion this year, a 2.9% increase from the net digest value last year.
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Responding to a question by District 9 Board Member Venus Cain, Smith noted that the salaries of non-certified employees—such as janitors or bus drivers, as opposed to teachers—must come out of the local district budget rather than state funding.
District 10 Board Member Helen Minchew asked about cost savings considered in the coming fiscal year’s budget. Smith responded by emphasizing the implementation of RCBOE’s 2024-25 Master Facilities Plan, which included the closing of two schools—Spirit Creek and A. Brian Merry Elementary schools—as a means of cutting costs.
Several residents attended Tuesday night’s meeting for an opportunity to speak on the millage rate increase.
Holly Levingston, who has two children in the Richmond County School System, addressed the increase of the millage rate amid the construction of new schools.
“It’s poor planning,” she said. “Every time I turn around, there’s a new neighborhood being built. What is going to happen in three years when we have seven more neighborhoods and the schools that you just currently have not even finished being built aren’t enough?”
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Shon McKinnon, who attended both public hearings Tuesday, expressed disappointment in both iterations of Smith’s presentation of the millage rate increase, citing the Richmond County School District’s national rankings compared to Columbia County’s.
“Where’s the accountability to the taxpayers?” said McKinnon. “Are we going to give back to you, the people of Richmond County, a five-star system, or are you going to just take this money and continue to present to us a one-star system?”
The next and final millage hearing will be held Aug. 27, at 5:30 p.m.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
