Friday, January 25, 2002
|
Friday, January 25, 2002 |
|
Senior tax relief is set for a March 19 vote The Coweta County School Board's Senior Tax Exemption referendum is on its way to the March 19 special election ballot, following Governor Roy Barnes' signature of local legislation approving the ballot question last week.. School Board members praised the actions of Coweta County's five-person General Assembly delegation, who worked throughout the opening days of the legislative session to secure quick passage of the ballot resolution. "I'd like to like our Coweta delegation for doing such a fine job of getting that through,"said board chairman Bill Covington, at the opening of a joint session of the board and the city of Newnan last week to finalize plans for the Fine Arts Center site. The board sent a letter to the delegation after the meeting conveying its "gratitude for the exceptional manner in which you worked to expedite approval of HB 989 during this first week of the General Assembly session." "The Senior Tax Exemption referendum is of great interest to both this board and the public, and we are indebted for your hard work on behalf of this local legislation," the letter read. A certified copy of the local legislation was sent Friday by the school system to the U.S. Justice Department for required pre-clearance of the referendum. School officials anticipated no difficulties in securing the department's approval. That places the senior tax exemption referendum question on the same March 19 ballot with another school board referendum: extension of the current one-cent Education Local Option Sales Tax. The structure of the proposed senior tax exemption increase was worked out by a citizens' committee of senior citizens convened last year by board member Allan Payton. The Senior Citizen Property Tax referendum will call for raising property tax exemptions to exempt the first $40,000 of assessed value for Coweta County property owners aged 65 to 70; $60,000 assessed value for citizens aged 71 to 74; and $80,000 assessed value for citizens aged 75 and over. If approved by voters, the rise in senior tax exemptions would show up on the 2003 tax bills, according to state law. The extension of the current Education Local Option Sales Tax, or "ELOST," would collect up to $97 million in sales tax revenues over five years; the current ELOST will expire June 30, 2002. Renewal of the ELOST, if approved by voters, would fund the payment of all school system bond issues still outstanding and would result in a subsequent 1.6 mill property tax reduction starting in 2003. It would also fund up to $61 million (depending on actual collections) in school construction and refurbishment, classroom expansion, technology and other capital expenditures through 2007, to accommodate an anticipated school system growth of 4,500 students over the next five years.
|
||