School Board overtaxes Camden property owners
The owner of an average Camden County home will pay approximately $70 more than necessary in school taxes this year because of the mathematically incorrect and inflated millage rate adopted by the Camden County Board of Education. The excessive tax bite will be much higher for commercial and higher-value residential property owners, says Bob Griggs, the founder of MillageRate.com, an advocacy group promoting honesty in the Georgia property taxation process.
The group recently completed its analysis of the millage rate adopted by the Camden School Board. The millage rate of 14.578, says the group, will overtax the property owners of Camden by over $1.2 million.
“The millage rate is nothing more than the answer to a simple arithmetic problem,” says Griggs. “We can prove that the Camden School Board did not ‘do the math’ and, as a result, will take more tax dollars from Camden’s property owners than it needs to fund its 2005-2006 budget.”
The millage rate represents the amount of tax, in dollars, on every $1,000 of taxable property value in the county required to satisfy the part of the budget that must be funded by tax dollars, after all other sources of revenue are considered. The millage rate is calculated by dividing the part of the budget to be funded by tax dollars by the Net Tax Digest, which is the total value of all taxable property in the county (after exemptions, 40% value). The result of this simple math problem is then multiplied by 1,000.
According to Griggs, the mathematically-correct millage rate is 13.409.
“Had the School Board adopted the correct rate, the budget would have been fully funded without overtaxing the people of Camden County,” said Griggs. “As it is, the School Board will generate a surplus with no purpose and without the permission of Camden’s taxpayers.”
A full account of MillageRate.com’s research is published at AboutCamden.com, a community discussion forum sponsored by the tax group. Interested taxpayers can discuss the School Board’s inflated tax rate in the forum or at the MillageRate.com blog at www.millagerate.com/blog/ .
ABOUT US: MillageRate.com is a grass-roots effort to promote honesty in the property taxation process in Georgia. Our primary goal is a simple change of state law to require levying authorities– city councils, county commissions and school boards– to adopt mathematically-correct rates following the procedure taught by the Georgia Department of Revenue and employed by tax commissioners across the state.
Bob, I thank you on behalf of the taxpayers of Camden County. I informed County Commissioner Sandy Feller that the County/School System adopted a fraudulent Budget. They then re-advertised in the legal organ citing the 11 million dollar mistake. Although the budget did not change, I noticed that the millage rate did not reflect the 11 million dollar oversight. I am glad that you are bringing attention to this subject. Let me ask you a question. If the County adopts the School Boards inflated millage rate and the School Board receives the additional ($70.00 from every household) 1.2 million dollars in revenue, what happens to that money? Will the taxpayers have a say in how this excess is distributed?