The Habersham County Commission held its first of three public hearings on the proposed millage rate on Wednesday, July 19.
Commissioners adopted the FY 2024 budget based on the current millage rate of 12.682. They are not proposing an increase. However, since property reassessments are higher this year, some property owners will still end up paying higher taxes.
The county will collect approximately $2.94 million more in property taxes this year due to higher valuations and new construction. The higher valuations will contribute $1.76 million more this year than last, and $1.18 in new revenue will come from new construction.
If commissioners adopted the rollback rate, the millage rate would drop to 11.661.
A home with no exemptions with a current FMV of $150,000 would have an assessed value of $60,000. At the current tax rate of 12.682 mills, the property tax would be $760.92. The same home with the rollback millage rate of 11.661 would have a county property tax bill of $699.66, resulting in a savings of $61.26.
Dominic Ustica spoke during the public hearing in opposition of the reassessment increase.
“I’m just opposed to this type of increase,” Ustica said. “We have over 16,000 household families in Habersham County, a good 25%-30% of us are retiring as I am, living on a fixed income. This is quite a bit of an increase.”
Rick Wood addressed the commission about his property assessments. He told the commissioners that he looked over his property assessments, and it looked like his assessments went up 37% over last year.
“That concerns us. That was a big increase (last year), and now we are talking about another big increase.”
Two hearings on July 26
At the county commission work session Monday night, Habersham County Manager Alicia Vaughn went over the millage rate process with commissioners.
“The proposed budget that you passed as a board assumes that the millage rate remains at 12.682,” she said. “If we were to roll back the millage rate, that would decrease our property tax revenue [by] $1.761 million, which would mean that we would have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to reduce the budget by $1.761 million.”
Since the higher valuations will amount to a tax increase, the county commission must hold three public hearings before adopting a millage rate.
County commissioners will hold two more millage rate hearings on Wednesday, July 26, at 11:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. They will hold the morning hearing in the commission conference room at the Habersham County Administrative Building at 130 Jacobs Way in Clarkesville. The third and final public hearing will be that evening in the jury assembly room at the county courthouse.
The commission will set the millage rate at that final hearing.
