Bulloch County officials have dialed back a proposed increase in the Board of Commissioners’ portion of the property rate by a half mill, to a 1.5-mill increase. Compounded with inflation in assessed property values, that will amount to a 28% increase in tax on average, but not the more than 30% implied by the originally suggested 1.75-mill hike.

Under the revised proposal, the county government’s new, general millage rate would be 12.58 mills, up from last year’s 11.35 mills.

A mill is 1/1000th of the value of property assessed for taxes, and most property in Georgia is assessed at 40% of market value. So a 1.5-mill increase amounts to $60 more annual tax on each $100,000 worth of property. That doesn’t factor in, on the one-hand, the increases in appraised values or, on the other hand, homestead exemptions, including a big one-year, state-funded exemption that will offset the increase to a degree on owner-occupied homes.

Responding to one Bulloch County resident who spoke during the July 18 Board of Commissioners meeting, board Chairman Roy Thompson noted a map marked up to show that Bulloch County’s combined county government and schools millage rate, as of last year, was lower than the rates in all of the neighboring counties, namely Bryan, Candler, Effingham, Emanuel, Evans, Jenkins and Screven counties.

“We have a map showing Bulloch County in the middle, and all of the surrounding counties have higher tax rates than we do. …,” Thompson said. “I’m hoping that when this is all said and done, after these hearings and when we do set the millage rate … I’m still hoping all the ones around us are higher than what we are.”

On and off the map

The map, which was distributed by county officials at an earlier budget hearing, shows Bulloch’s combined rate as 21.583 mills, while those in the seven surrounding counties ranged from 23.84 mills in Jenkins County to 28.329 mills in Effingham.

It also notes that all of the surrounding counties have add-on flat fees per taxpayer address ranging from $30 in Emanuel to $400 in Bryan for support of things such as hospitals, fire departments and ambulance service, while Bulloch has no such fees.

However, the map makes no adjustments for real estate prices.

Thompson invited the complaining citizen – who was asking for a new, local homestead exemption to be created – and others to come to any of three public hearings the commissioners are required to hold before taking final action on any tax increase.

“Come to those meetings, and gosh, maybe you’ll be surprised when it’s all over with,” he said.

Times and dates for the commissioners’ three hearings, required under a Georgia law known as the Property Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, had not been set as of Friday.

During the July 18 meeting, staff members revealed three potential dates and times for the hearings. But commissioners Clerk Venus Mincey-White and County Manager Tom Couch later said these times had been tentative, and they did not place a notice in the July 20 Statesboro Herald, as would have been required for the first hearing to occur on July 31 as previously stated.

The reason for the delay, Couch reported, was that the county staff had not received definite information on the Board of Education’s intended millage and whether that board would also need to hold tax increase hearings.

“They may have to have some hearings, from what I understand,” he said.

The two boards set separate millage rates, but the commissioners adopt the school board’s rate as part of the total levy.

School tax increase

Superintendent of Schools Charles Wilson had told Board of Education members that he would like to roll back the millage rate, since the school system already has a large cash balance in its general fund.

But the same consideration that last year limited the school board to a smaller rollback than required to fully offset real estate price inflation and avoid the hearings actually demands a small increase in the rate this year, Wilson said Friday.

The school system, which receives all of the revenue from Bulloch County’s original 1% Local Option Sales Tax to use for operating revenue, is required to offset that revenue with a rollback of property taxes.

But to receive an annual state “equalization grant,” meant to compensate for inequality in the taxable wealth of school districts, the school board must maintain an “effective millage,” of at least 14 mills.

The “effective” rate combines the actual property tax rate levied on behalf of the schools, which was 8.236 mills last year, with the amount of rollback provided by the sales tax. Together, they must add up to 14 mills to maintain the grant, which is now worth about $7.4 million a year to the Bulloch County Schools.

“As a result of the necessary calculations and requirements, we will be recommending that the board tentatively adopt the [maintenance and operations] millage rate of 8.478 mills at the July 27 work session,” Wilson wrote in an email midafternoon Friday. “This will be followed by three public hearings between August 10 and 17 (to be advertised) followed by final adoption of the millage rate at a called meeting on August 18 at noon.”

To have avoided tax increase hearings entirely, the school board would have had to roll its property tax rate back to 7.304 mills, but Wilson says it would have forfeited the equalization grant in doing so.

BOE hearing times

A press release sent out from the school system central office after 5 p.m. Friday announced the times of the three school-tax hearings as Thursday, Aug. 10 at 12 noon, Aug. 17 at 9 a.m. and also Aug. 17 at 6 p.m.

This is a different sort of schedule than proposed for the county commissioners’ hearings, which were all slated for 6:30 p.m. on different days at one-week intervals.  The new dates for those had not been announced yet.

Both the county government and school system property tax revenues would have increased substantially without millage increases because of some growth from new construction and much greater inflation in property values. New values were determined by the county Board of Tax Assessors staff earlier this year, based on last year’s sales, and have since been subject to an appeals process.

Growth and inflation

As shown in information Couch released, which will become part of formal notices before the county’s hearings, the final digest included 13.6% inflation in values of existing properties plus 3.94% real growth.

That makes a total increase of 17.54% in the value of all taxable property, very close to what Chief Appraiser Tax Appraiser Ronny Newton estimated in early June.

But in drafting the commissioners’ budget, Couch and county Chief Financial Officer Kristie King had used a 15% estimate of growth in the digest while also calculating for a 1.75-mill rate increase.

“We anticipate that we can get the requisite revenue at 1.5 mills rather than 1.75,” Couch said Thursday. “We had to wait until … a couple of weeks ago as the tax assessors were getting ready to finish all of their commercial appeals.”

To have completely avoided tax increase hearings, the commissioners would need to roll back their rate to 10.036 mills. That was never officially suggested in a year of inflation and anticipated population growth in which Couch and county department heads say they need more personnel and funding just to “catch up” on providing basic services.

Incidentally, all of the taxable property in Bulloch County is now valued at a little over $2.99 billion, and the total digest value, including tax-exempt property, is over $3.32 billion.