Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

It’s official: Larger tax bills for PTC

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

It’s official: most Peachtree City residents will see an increase in their city property taxes.

The City Council voted early Friday morning to hold its millage rate, used to calculate property tax rates, at 5.283 mills for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. Most homeowners will realize a net increase in their property taxes due to increases from annual property reassessments.

It would have cost roughly $340,000 for the City Council to roll back the millage rate to offset the reassessment increases. The vote to hold the millage rate this year was unanimous, with Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford absent.

Despite the effective raise in property taxes, several council members have noted that the millage rate could have been rolled back to offset the tax increase if not for the $525,715 needed to fund staffing and finance payments for the new library expansion.

Georgia law requires governments who decline to roll back their millage rate to publicly advertise that property taxes will be increasing.

“This is a tax increase only because the state of Georgia says you have to do that,” Rapson said. “This is not a millage rate increase.”

At a recent meeting on the millage rate, several citizens urged council to roll back the millage rate to offset the reassessment increases. The city budget for the coming year will be discussed at a public hearing during Thursday’s City Council meeting at 7 p.m.

City Finance Director Paul Salvatore recommended not rolling the millage rate back because it would force higher millage rate increases the next several years, based on projections.

The proposed $25.81 million budget includes three full-time positions including a city engineer/project manager, a librarian and a systems specialist for information technology. Two part-time positions are also proposed: a library assistant and a staff assistant for the planning department that is being transitioned from a part-time to a full-time role.

The proposed budget represents an increase of $1.1 million, or 4.3 percent, over the current year’s budget.