The city of Cornelia announced their ad valorem tax increase for 2022 at Tuesday night’s commission meeting. The meeting also served as the first of their first of three requires public hearings on the increase.
Commissioners are not proposing a millage rate increase, only a valuation increase based on the city’s 2022 tax digest.
The tax digest for the city of Cornelia increased by $22,906,919 for 2022. The breakdown for the increase is – Reassessments $12,810,816, New Development was $3,848,152, Real & Personal Property was $4,150,000. The city also did an audit of their account and discovered that several property owners were receiving exemptions when they were not eligible to receive an exemption.
Cornelia City Manager Dee Anderson explained that if the city maintained their current millage rate at 8.5 mills, the result would actually be a .440 mill increase based on the inflationary rollback rate. This means that a homeowner with a house valued at $100,000 would see an increase of $17.60 on their property taxes. By maintaining the millage rate of 8.5 mills, the city would see an increase in property tax revenue by $194,709, which would be an increase of 11.33% from 2021.
Cornelia will hold two more public hearings on the millage rate. They are both scheduled on November 1. The first meeting will be at 12 p.m. and the final public hearing will be held the same day at 6 p.m. during the commission’s regularly scheduled meeting at Cornelia City Hall.
No one from the public came forward to speak about the millage rate during the October 4 hearing. Cornelia City Commissioner Don Bagwell cautioned those in the audience and the city at large that tax increases could be coming in the future.
“I think it is important for the citizens to understand that we are really not covering by staying at this millage rate. What we are trying to do is be sensitive to the fact that it’s been a difficult year and we just don’t want to raise taxes on people who are already struggling. This is just not a year to do that. But we are going to see, I think, in the next several years some significant increases in just the cost of everything and those are going to have to be covered by taxes. We need to be prepared to pay higher taxes in the future just to cover the rising costs, said Bagwell.
Before closing out Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor John Borrow noted that the Big Red Apple Festival was a huge success. Borrow estimated at least 8,000 people attended the festivities. There was a much larger crowd this year than last year.
The next big community-wide event in Cornelia will be Downtown Trick or Treating scheduled from 3-6 p.m. on Monday, October 31.
