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 UPDATED:
03/02/2008
Richmond County Schools
For 2005-2006, the Richmond
County School System (RCS) needs $69,047,494 in property tax dollars to fully
fund the operations budget. The net tax digest (40% value) for this year is
$3,819,710,385. RCS adopted a millage rate of 18.293.
The adopted rate will actually bring in at least $69,873,962, or $826,468
more than the budget requires. In other words, RCS has adopted a millage
rate that will take more tax dollars from the property owners of Richmond County
than is required to fund the cost of public education.
Had RCS "done the math," it would have adopted a millage rate of 18.077.
The owner of a $150,000* property will pay $1,097.58 in property taxes for
schools (not considering exemptions), $12.98 more than necessary. The excessive
tax bite will, of course, be much higher for commercial and higher-value
residential property owners.
In 2004-2005, the overtaxation was even worse. The operations budget
required $67,113,087 in property tax dollars; however, RCS set a millage rate (20.196)
which would bring in $70,157,979, $3.04 million in excess collections. (The net
tax digest actually ended up being slightly higher than expected, producing a
little over $160,000 in additional tax revenue.)
Calculated correctly, the millage rate for last year should have been 19.319,
.877 mills lower. The owner of a $150,000* home paid $52.64 more in school taxes
than the RCS actually needed to fund the cost of government last year.
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Jurisdiction List
*assessed value. This value does not include exemptions, which may lower your actual tax liability.
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