Eastern Coweta County residents will probably receive a little sticker shock when they receive their tax bills in the late fall.

Coweta County and the school system conducted public hearings recently to notify residents of an impending tax increase.

Coweta County is expected to appove its millage rate next Thursday at the 4 p.m. County Commission meeting. The millage rates are 6.15 for unincorporated residents and 6.74 for incorporated residents and 2.5 mills for the fire district. The rate increase is one mill for unincorporated residents and .43 for incorporated citizens.

“We’re increasing the rate higher for unincorporated residents because we’re having to pay $1.5 million for stormwater management,” said County Administrator Theron Gay.

The increased population has put a strain on services, and Gay hopes that this year’s budget will be able to fund additional public safety services.

At the school system, is leavin the school system’s current ad valorem tax rate of 18.59 mills in place during 2006.

Maintaining the same millage rate in 2006 will increase the property taxes the Coweta County School System will levy this year by 1.03 percent over the rollback millage rate.

Each year, the board of assessors is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes 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 increase 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 new digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

login to post comments