This week the Dade County, Georgia, Board of Commissioners held the last of three legally required public hearings for an "increase" in property taxes, despite rolling back the millage rate for both incorporated and unincorporated areas of the county.
For incorporated areas, the proposed millage rate is a rollback from 10.801 mills to 10.733 mills. For the unincorporated areas of Dade County, the proposed rate is a rollback from 8.007 mills to 8.000 mills.
A millage rate is the tax rate used to calculate local property taxes. It represents the amount of tax collected per every $1,000 of a property's assessed value. Assigned millage rates are multiplied by the total taxable value of the property in order to arrive at property taxes.
The Georgia Taxpayer Bill of Rights requires local governments either roll back their millage rates to offset rising property values or announce the revenue gain as a tax increase.
Chief Financial Officer Don Townsend said an assessment completed last year revealed there had been a little more than 7% growth in Dade County since an assessment of its value was last completed.
"The worth of our county basically grew by $30 million in this assessment that was done," Commissioner Robert Goff said in a previous hearing on the matter earlier this month. "That's what this is all based on. We're going down on the millage rate, but some people will pay more taxes than they were paying because the value of their properties went up."
As discussed, the millage rate will require an increase in property taxes by 5.81% in the unincorporated areas of the county and 1.11% in the incorporated areas.
The Dade County Board of Commissioners will meet Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the Dade Administrative Building meeting room, located at 71 Case Ave. in Trenton, to formally adopt the millage rate.
Contact Kelcey Caulder at kcaulder@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327. Follow her on Twitter @kelceycaulder.