Whitfield school board holds tax rate steady; board hasn’t raised rate since 2012

Published 12:01 am Sunday, August 20, 2017

Calling it the “prudent” thing to do, members of the Whitfield County Board of Education voted 5-0 Thursday to hold the school system’s property tax rate steady at 18.756 mills.

“There’s still so much we don’t know,” said board member Rodney Lock. “It wouldn’t do anyone much good if we rolled it back this year and then had to raise it even higher next year because we ran a bigger deficit than we predicted.”

Because of the growth of the tax digest, that rate will bring in more revenue, so it’s considered a tax increase under state law, and the board had to hold three public hearings before formally setting the tax rate. According to data presented at those hearings, that tax rate is projected to bring in $31.5 million. To offset fully the effects of the growing digest, the board would have to roll the tax rate back to 17.924 mills, which would bring in a projected $30.2 million.

Finance Director Kelly Johnson Coon told board members that if they leave the tax rate unchanged the school system will run a projected deficit of $410,351 during the current fiscal year, which started July 1, leaving the system with a $21.2 million fund balance. But if they fully roll back the tax rate, the system would run a $1.6 million deficit and have a fund balance of $19.99 million at the end of the fiscal year.

But those numbers are all based on the county tax digest numbers released earlier this year.

“We don’t know how firm those numbers are,” said board member Thomas Barton.

More than 1,500 taxpayers have challenged their assessments. If a significant number win their appeals, it could reduce the digest and tax collections.

And last week, Whitfield County Chief Appraiser Ashley O’Donald said he was be sending out new assessments to some 1,000 homeowners as a result of a review he and his staff conducted of land values in the county’s subdivisions to make sure land values within those subdivisions are uniform.

“We haven’t yet been given any numbers on what impact that will have on the digest,” said Coon. “That’s just one more reason to be cautious.”

The three public hearings were sparsely attended, with only a few people speaking.

Board Chairman Bill Worley said he wasn’t surprised.

“If we were raising the tax rate, it would have been different. But we just held our rate where it was,” he said.

The board has kept its tax rate at 18.756 mills since 2012.