At the December Coweta County School Board meeting, Superintendent Horton stated that Coweta has the lowest school tax milage rate in metro Atlanta (15.41 v 19.15 Fayette). Then Peachtree City Mayor Kim Learnard also referred to Peachtree City’s low milage in her editorial on these pages.
However, while there has been a few “new maths” since I was in school, the mathematical principles, however, remain the same. If the growth of the property is not reasonably controlled, voters are still going to pay more taxes even if the milage is low. However, then the sides can gather together to blame the tax assessor and attempt to avoid the blame for higher taxes.
While many employers have either given small or no annual increases due to the economic pressure from inflation, property tax increases have continued to grow at a larger rate. While property owners may hold appreciated property, they have no income from these unrealized gains, but taxes generated from these gains are not optional, taking money from elsewhere in the budget.
I believe the voters across Georgia voted for Amendment 1 in HB 581 to say that while they support our public schools, cities, and counties, they could no longer afford taxes driven by unrealized property growth, regardless that higher values are beneficial.
A voter spoke during public comment at that CCBOE meeting and said they believed that even if the Coweta County Board of Education needed to raise the millage because the taxable value was capped, they believed the voters would support it if the case were made. I believe that too and we proved this in Fayette.
When I first got involved in the ESPLOST, some believed we would fail. However, the voters were given the facts and made the decision to support the excellent and quality Fayette County Public Schools by less than three hundred votes in a heavily contested Presidential election (2008 Obama v McCain).
A cynical person might say that these leaders would prefer to blame increasing values instead of making a case to defend an increase in the milage to cover rising costs, even if the mathematical result is the same. I prefer to hope not.
Mayor Learnard stated that FCBOE was already opting out of HB 581. While that was news to some, it would not alter too much as FCBOE is already under a separate 3% homestead exemption voted in a few years ago. My understanding is that limitation stands regardless of any decision to opt out of HB 581.
However, while both leaders have done a thorough job of raising concerns and explaining the process to opt out, neither has devoted much, if any, energy to explaining how they plan to address and comply with the will of the voters, who have spoken clearly in voting for HB 581.
The presentation at the recent Coweta County Board of Education correctly quoted my recent article concerning the effects of amendment one contained in HB 581; they missed the last paragraph that I had hoped tied the article together.
Solutions are needed on the cost side, but the challenge is that over 80% of school costs is personnel. Revenue solutions are needed and may include moving away from a property tax solution toward a mixed approach that either sits long side or repurposes ESPLOST.
However, the data suggests that the time to chart an alternative course is already here and we all need to work together.
I look forward to the coming discussion and will report accordingly.
