This past week, the Coweta County School Board started public sessions to “opt out” of the public’s decision to adopt HB 581 which provides a homestead exemption to homeowners.
First, Dr. Horton continues to frame the question as “opt in” or “opt out,” which is curious as I do not see the need for any governmental entity to approve the voter’s decision to limit their taxes through HB 581 contained in the legislation. However, the legislation does allow the governmental entity to veto the decision of the voters by opting out.
Looking back over the past five years (2020-2024), Coweta County has increase by 103 students or .5%. However, Coweta School’s expenditure by student is up 32% versus Georgia 34.8%. (Fayette students down 3.2%, cost per student up 27.7%).
Dr. Horton focused a lot of his presentation on how low Coweta School tax millage rate is at 15.41. Using the same period, in 2020, Coweta school tax milage rate was 17.30. In 2020, the Coweta net M&O tax digest was $5.79B and $9.33B in 2024 or 63.4% increase. Correspondingly, school taxes were approximately $98.8M in 2020 and $143.8M in 2024 or 45.6% higher, again with only 103 more students.
The Superintendent states that Coweta County tax digest reflects seventy three percent of the tax digest is “residential.” However, its important to note that this homestead exemption in HB 581 only applies to property owned by individuals and occupied by the owners. Seeing the number of apartments around Ashley Park and Newnan Crossing Blvd, I have to wonder if those seventy three percent includes more than homestead eligible property (or “homesteaders” as Mayor Learnard called them) which can continue to grow in taxable value more than the HB 581 limit. Commercial property such as Ashley Park, the proposed data center, or the potential outlet mall do not get a HB581 exemption.
Now, to be clear, I appreciate Dr. Horton doing his best to make sure that the Coweta County schools have as many flexible funding options as possible and I believe that is his job. However, I hope that the school board realizes that many Coweta taxpayers have been flexed by rising costs and have fewer options to cover rising taxes and representing taxpayers is their job. The taxpayers spoke in one loud voice, where 63% voted for HB 581.
A common interpretation of Provers 27:12 says that a wise man sees danger and take precaution while a simple man carries on. Some will say that Dr. Horton’s reluctance to embrace the will of the taxpayers is wise for Coweta County schools. However, a reasonable person can wonder whether if given the room in the millage rate, the danger from rising costs and shrinking revenue outweighs the danger to our schools from the results of the school board’s veto of the public’s express intentions with respect to HB 581.
