News

Jul 19, 2023

Euharlee proposes 1.72 millage rate

From left, Euharlee City Manager James Stephens and City of Emerson legal counsel H. Boyd Pettit. Members of the Euharlee City Council gathered on Aug. 1 to discuss the municipality’s proposed 2023

From left, Euharlee City Manager James Stephens and City of Emerson legal counsel H. Boyd Pettit.

Members of the Euharlee City Council gathered on Aug. 1 to discuss the municipality’s proposed 2023 millage rate.

Euharlee City Manager James Stephens said the proposed rollback rate would come in at 1.72 mills.

“As y’all recall, we levied taxes last year at 2 mills,” he said. “If the City opted to go with the calculated rollback — which would indicate that we are not required to advertise it as a tax increase — that would make the total tax levy $293,611.”

If the local government stuck with 2 mills, the rate would have to be advertised as a tax increase.

“The total levy would be $339,631,” Stephens said. “At our next work session, we will have our audit report … I have spoken with the auditor, our unrestricted general fund balance for the end of 2022 is going to be $1,347,189.”

That amount, he continued is equal to about 6.2 months worth of reserve fund balance.

“The valuations from last year to this year are higher, so your home value may be more,” Euharlee Mayor Craig Guyton said. “So the 2 mills last year is less out of your family budget than 2 mills this year.”

Stephens noted that the City of Euharlee first implemented a millage rate in 2017.

“We had it for three years,” he said. “We hit six months and at that time the fund balance policy stated that if we had six months, you roll back to zero.”

That rollback to zero, however, was short lived.

“I think it’s important to understand that’s why it rolled back to zero,” Euharlee City Councilman Greg Free said. “It wasn’t a council choice, there was actually a rule in place that said if you hit this threshold, you have to roll it back.”

Stephens said that the local government recently altered its reserve fund policy, changing the threshold for the rollback to a zero millage rate from six months of reserves to a numerical reserves amount of $2 million.

“A mill of tax would bring you $169,000,” he added. “In addition to reassessment, there’s actual growth in the digest so it will actually yield a little bit larger tax levy than last year.”

So much of the discussion, Free said, is anchored around home values — which is something the Euharlee City Council has no control over.

“If home values keep going up, on paper, it’s going to look like the millage rate will stay the same but you’re going to pay additional tax on the valuation of your home,” he said.

With that in mind, Guyton said the mathematical formula is pretty straightforward.

“If your home valuation did not go up on you last year, you would actually be getting a tax break,” he said. “If yours went up more than that percentage, you would actually, possibly, pay a little bit more — but the overall tax digest and valuation is where that rolls back and equates to the City getting the same amount of dollars per citizen.”

Free said that it definitely takes some money to run a city.

“If we want to do things like roads and stuff like that, this thing will continually be a discussion,” he said. “Which is not a bad thing, but the flip side to that, too, I think everybody’s feeling the crunch right now … things are expensive, there’s nobody in this room that owns a home that’s not felt the crunch when it comes to looking at your tax bill.”

Guyton said that if the City rolled its millage rate to zero for the 2023 tax year, he feared that the municipality may end up using so much of its reserve funding that in the subsequent tax year, the City may have to implement a millage rate of 3 mills or more to make up the difference.

Furthermore, he said that proposed developments such as the Cherry Glen subdivision and a new recreational vehicle park may not have major impacts on next year’s tax digest.

“Those are projections, will they come to fruition?" he said. “I have no idea. As far as this year goes, I’m only one person on this council, but I’m in favor of rolling it back to 1.72 … to roll it to zero would not be conservative, in my opinion.”

Free noted that the millage rate was initially implement in 2017 because the local government had dipped so deep into its reserve funding.

“So we needed some drastic measures to increase that in case something would happen,” he said. “If we’re planning for down the road —whether it’s two years, five years, ten years, whatever — we have to remember that every ten years the local options sales tax (LOST) negotiations are going to happen.”

Free references the revenues splitting agreement for countywide sales tax distributions — a formula that involves the Bartow County government and all of the municipal governments within.

“If things keep going the way they’re going for other cities and the County, we may not fare as well as we did this time in LOST negotiations,” he said. “Which would really put a financial wallop to us because we’ve already lost $130,000 a year for the next ten years due to this time’s negotiation … when you’re looking at the big picture, you’ve got to at least think about that.”

Euharlee City Councilman Tim Abbott said only a handful of local governments within Bartow County have lower millage rates.

“But if you’ve driven through Taylorsville or Kingston, they’re nice places, but they don’t have much to offer,” he said. “We should be doing some things to offer our citizens some enjoyment.”

No official voting actions on the proposed millage rate were taken at the Aug. 1 meeting. The council is set to revisit the topic at a called Aug. 15 public meeting, at 30 Burgess Mill Road at 7 p.m.