Doughtery County School Board to keep millage rate unchanged

ALBANY — At a called meeting of the Dougherty County School Monday, the board held the final of three required public hearings on a tax increase for county property owners. After one person spoke, the board voted 5-0 to keep the school millage rate at 18.445.

The one question raised was about taxation, but not the millage rate.

Dougherty County resident Martha Alexander asked the board, “Why do I have to pay school taxes when I don’t have any children in the Dougherty County School System?”

Assistant Superintendent Jack Willis, who conducted the meeting in the absence of Superintendent Butch Mosely, said he understood Alexander’s concern.

“That question has been around for decades, and it is a fair question to ask,” Willis answered. “When you and I went to school, some people who did not have children paid taxes to pay the teachers and build the schools you and I attended. I call those kinds of people ‘bridge builders,’ because they are building bridges to educate our kids of the future.”

Willis stressed that the current 18.445 millage rate is not going up and county property owners will not be paying more in tax for the school system if their property is valued at the same rate it was last year.

Because the taxable property tax digest for Dougherty County has increased, the property tax generated by the 18.445 mills for the fiscal year that started July 1 is estimated to be greater than the amount the property tax generated this year. When this is the case, the Board of Education is required by state law to advertise it as a tax increase though when the millage rate remains the same.

The School Board adopted a millage rate that will require a property tax increase of 1.29 percent. The revenue increase will be accommodated with the millage rate of 18.445 mills. Without the additional revenue budgeted from property tax, the millage rate would have dropped 0.235 mill to a rate of 18.210 mills.

“I think it’s important to note that when the tax digest declined five of the past six years, the BOE did not raise the millage rate to make up for the loss in property taxes generated,” DCSS Finance Director Ken Dyer said when the subject of a tax increase arose. “Property tax revenue for FY 2015-16 is expected to be $3,994,651 less than what was generated six years ago and $311,995 less than what was generated last fiscal year.”