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Over 99% of Georgia’s City Councils, County Commissions and School Boards fail to simply do the math.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2005

MUSCOGEE SCHOOL SYSTEM NAMED TO “HALL OF MILLAGE RATE SHAME”

MillageRate.com, an advocacy group committed to promoting honesty in property taxation in Georgia, has named the Muscogee County School District to its “Hall of Millage Rate Shame” at its web site, www.millagerate.com.

The “Hall of Millage Rate Shame” highlights the “worst of the worst” Georgia taxing authorities who abuse the property taxation process, usually by overtaxing its residents through the setting of an arbitrarily-established millage (tax) rate. Those listed in the “Hall of Millage Rate Shame” have established a long history incorrect taxation, grossly overtaxed or undertaxed its constituents, and publicly demonstrated ignorance of the property tax process.

The Muscogee County School District is the “Hall of Millage Rate Shame’s” inaugural member. The school district’s inclusion was based on an analysis of its budgets and tax rates for the past three years. Other proposed members are currently pending verification and analysis.

“The Muscogee County School Board has a dark and checkered history of overtaxation,” says MillageRate.com founder Bob Griggs. “The school system has set the millage rate, 23.37, at the same number for the past 15 years– a mathematical impossibility. For at least the past three years, the school system has grossly overtaxed the residents of Muscogee County and blamed it on somebody else.”

Griggs said that the school board’s annual contention that it has not “raised taxes” in 15 years is a terrible deception. Last year, for example, the owner of a $150,000 home paid $88.68 more than necessary in property taxes for schools. This year, the school board is set to overtax Muscogee residents again.

Public hearings on the millage rate are set for April 25, May 9 and May 16. The school board proposes to adopt the inflated millage rate immediately following the May 16 hearing.

“The facts are undeniable,” said Griggs. “The Muscogee County School system wants to take more from Muscogee property owners than is required to fund its 2006 budget. The only reason they can claim that it is not a “tax increase” is because they did the same thing the year before– and the year before that.”

According to Griggs, Muscogee’s school millage rate should actually be closer to 22.00, depending on the net tax digest. Griggs said that the school board can reduce the tax rate by 6% and still fully fund the budget.

“More importantly, the Muscogee School Board has the opportunity to deal honestly with its constituents,” said Griggs.

MillageRate.com is a grassroots effort seeking a state law requiring taxing authorities– cities, counties and school boards– to set a mathematically-correct millage rate. For more information about MillageRate.com, visit the web site or contact Bob Griggs, 770-713-8070 or bobg@millagerate.com.

Atlanta City Schools will operate on a 2005-2006 budget of $526,781,768. Of that amount, $363,400,000 will be funded by property tax dollars and the system will draw $8,094,768 from reserves to balance the budget.

The School Board adopted an operations millage rate of 20.423.

The mathematically-correct millage rate is 19.454, 0.969 mills lower.

The arbitrarily high rate proposed by the School Board will overtax Atlanta city property owners by at least $18 million more than is necessary to fully fund this year’s budget.

The owner of a $150,000 home in the city of Atlanta will pay $1,225.38 in property taxes for schools, about $58.11 more than what would be required under a mathematically-correct millage rate.

Even if the Atlanta school system had fully funded the budget with property tax dollars rather than draw on reserves, the adopted millage would have still been too high. The budget would have required $371,494,768 in tax dollars; a millage rate of 19.888 would have fully funded the budget without a draw on reserves.

In other words, the school system could have preserved its cash and still adopted a millage rate 1/2-mill lower than it did.

See the math

You’ve heard the stories, I am sure– in counties across Georgia and especially in areas with overheated development economies like Gwinnett, rising assessments for property tax purposes are literally taxing some people off of their land. Each county Tax Commissioner is required to value property at “fair market value” for tax purposes. Individual property values climb, whether or not the property owner has any intent to sell.

For the rest of this overview by our founder, Bob Griggs, visit his personal blog.

At a time when it seems the price of everything is going up, the Gordon County Board of Education is giving taxpayers a break in the form of a rollback.

During a special called meeting Tuesday, the board voted to set the 2005 millage rate to meet the 2006 budget at 16.584, which is down .226 mills from last year and almost a full mill over a five-year period.

“I was very pleased to be able to recommend that to the board,” Supt. Mike Stanton said. “This is a credit to the board’s leadership.”

Stanton explained that part of this budget is the result of the board’s foresight.

“When planning the new high school we adjusted the millage rate in anticipation of hiring the new staff,” he said. “But beyond that, all of our schools and departments were very aware of revenue shortfalls in the state of Georgia in the past few years.”

More…

Coweta County will have a hearing tonight on the first proposed millage increases in 12 years.

The rate for residents of unincorporated Coweta would increase from 3.91 to 5.15. The owner of a $200,000 home would pay about $99 more in county taxes.

Residents of the municipalities would see their millage increase from 5.12 to 6.31. That’s about a $95 tax increase on a $200,000 home, said county finance director Rick Smoot.

Taxes are going up because of increased demands for services from a growing population, said Tom Corker, the county’s administrative and operations director.

Tonight’s hearing begins at 6 in the County Commission meeting room, 37 Perry St. in Newnan. Another hearing will be 6 p.m. Tuesday.

[Source: AJC]