Residents of Fayetteville and Peachtree City will get the biggest break on their Fayette County property taxes in 1999.

That's because they don't have to pay an increase in the tax rate for fire protection that those who live in the county's fire district have to pay.

The County Commission unanimously improved an increase in the fire tax and reductions in other taxes during its regular meeting last week.

Officials say the fire tax increase is unavoidable because of new federal mandates that require hiring and equipping nine more firefighters this year.

Those who get their fire service from Fayette County will pay a half mill more for fire protection fire taxes have increased from 3.5 to 4 mills offsetting a half-mill reduction in the tax for bonded indebtedness down to zero because the county paid off its debts during the 1997-98 fiscal year.

Residents of the two cities will get both the half-mill reduction in taxes for debt and a .36-mill reduction in general fund taxes from 6.71 mills in FT1998 to 6.35 for 1999 .86 mills altogether.

Residents of the other incorporated areas will get only the .36-mill reduction, and those in unincorporated areas will see a .25-mill reduction, from 5.46 to 5.21.

A mill is one dollar per thousand dollars of a property's assessed value. Assessed value is 40 percent of the home's fair market value. Those who live in their homes also receive a homestead exemption of $5,000, subtracted from the assessed value before the tax bills are calculated.

Thus, the owner of a $100,000 home in unincorporated Fayette will receive a reduction of $8.76 in county taxes. Those in incorporated areas but in the county fire district will get a reduction of $12.60, and those in Peachtree City and Fayetteville will see their taxes drop $30.10.

But you probably won't be able to find those reductions when you get your tax bills next month. That's because tax assessors reassessed the value of all the property in the county this year, and in most cases that means the lower tax rates will be applied to higher home values.

For instance, assuming a home's value increased 10 percent in the reassessment, the $100,000 home in the example above is now worth $110,000. And in unincorporated Fayette, taxes on the same home will increase by $12.08, from $191.11 last year to $203.19 this year, after the new, lower tax rates are applied.

In Fayetteville, though, the same home's county taxes will drop by $4.70, because those residents are unaffected by the half-mill increase in fire district taxes, but will receive the half-mill decrease in taxes for bonded indebtedness.

Total value of all property in the county increased about 17 percent, partly as a result of the reassessment, partly as a result of new construction.

County budget officials had estimated a slightly smaller increase in the tax digest, and thus the county was able to reduce tax rates slightly more than anticipated when the $14.4 million budget was approved in July.