The Walker County Board of Education’s budget for fiscal ’09 is a $82,636,569 spending plan that includes a small rollback of the school property tax rate.

“We went down a little bit,” Mike Carruth, school board chairman, said about the millage rate. “As a taxpayer in Walker County, I would love to have seen it drop more.”

The board unanimously approved the budget and lowering the millage rate from 17.55 to 17.45 mills. One mill is the equivalent of $1 in taxes per every $1,000 of assessed property value.

It was the first school tax rollback in about 10 years, said Phyllis Copeland, director of financial services. She said the rollback is not big, but it’s not a tax increase, and she thinks the public will appreciate the new rate.

Mr. Carruth said it will give some taxpayers a small break during tough economic times.

Walker County Tax Commissioner Carolyn Walker said the county property tax rate, too, will be rolled back by “just fractions.”

With both rollbacks, residents can expect to pay a few dollars less in property taxes, “as long as your property wasn’t re-valued up,” Mrs. Walker said about new assessments for some properties in the county.

Even with the lowered millage rate, growth in the county’s tax base will result in more revenue and support the bigger budget, up from $75 million this year, Ms. Copeland said.

Superintendent Melissa Mathis said money from sources other than local property taxes, such as more state funds, also helped the budget.

She said the state funding will restore some austerity cuts made previously in the state education funding formula.

The system also received $1.08 million more in state dollars to pay for state-mandated salary increases for teachers, Mrs. Mathis said.

This budget does not include funds from the education special purpose local option sales tax, Mr. Carruth said.

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