The Coweta County Board of Commissioners is advertising tentative 2007 millage rates that reflect a more than 25 percent increases for Coweta property owners.

The proposed increase will be used in several areas including covering the increasing cost of fuel and petroleum products. This is necessary not only for operating county vehicles, but also to continue to improve our transportation infrastructure. Many roads in Coweta County need improvements and the cost of those improvements continues to increase. Upgrading one intersection with a traffic light and improvements can cost up to $600,000.

The proposed increase will also be used to fund new programs, including staff and maintenance and operations for the new Coweta County library on Ebenezer Church Road. Other new programs requiring funding in 2007-08 include the Clay-Wood Community Center and the Welcome Community Center, which will both require staff and maintenance and operations budgets. This budget is tentative and is still being reviewed.

The final public hearing is July 27, at 4 p.m. at the County Administration Building in Newnan The public is invited to make comments on the tentative millage rates at this hearing.

Each year, the board of tax assessors is required to review, for property tax purposes, the assessed value of taxable property in the county. When the trend of prices on properties that have recently sold in the county indicate there has been an increase in the fair market value of any specific property, the board of tax assessors is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment. This is called a reassessment.

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year's digest that last year's millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The budget under consideration requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate. The tentative 2007 millage rates, which are advertised as 7.76 for incorporated Coweta and 7.15 for unincorporated Coweta, reflect an overall 26.5 percent increase including the rollback amount.

These figures are for taxes collected for Coweta County Government and do not reflect taxes imposed by the school board, the various municipalities or the State of Georgia. Coweta County taxes represent approximately 25 percent of a total property tax bill, with the remaining 75 percent going to the school system and the state.

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