- The Thomas County School System is holding multiple public hearings regarding a proposed tax increase.
- The district says the primary reason for the tax increase is to avoid losing the $12.6 million annual equalization grant funded by the state of Georgia.
- Read the news release below to see when you can attend a public hearing and how this may affect property owners in Thomas County going forward. Watch our video explaining the situation above.
NEWS RELEASE:
The Thomas County Board of Education announces its intention to increase the 2024 property taxes it will levy by 18.67 percent over the rollback millage rate.
Each year, the board of tax 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 adjust the assessment. This is called a reassessment.
When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires a rollback millage rate 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 primary reason for the tax increase is to avoid losing the $12.6 million annual equalization grant funded by the state of Georgia for school systems with low tax digest wealth on a per student basis. Georgia code 20-2-165-9c requires local school systems to levy at least an effective millage rate of 14 to qualify for the equalization grant. Adopting the rollback rate of 10.677 would result in an effective millage rate of under 14 for Thomas County Schools and place the school system in risk of losing $12.6 million from the state each year in the future.
The Thomas County School System has had one of the lowest millage rates among Georgia school systems and has not requested a tax increase in the past 12 years. In 2023, the Thomas County School System millage rate of 11.44 was the tenth lowest of 180 school districts in Georgia, not counting eight districts that receive a one percent sales tax for operations. There are only 10 districts in the state that receive a one percent sales tax for general school operations, and this allows these districts to have lower millage rates. Furthermore, the average millage rate last year for the 180 school districts was 14.981, and the tentative millage rate of 12.67 adopted by the Thomas County Board of Education this year continues to be substantially below the state average.
Before the Thomas County Board of Education may set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.
All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Board Meeting Room at the Thomas County Board of Education, located at 200 North Pinetree Boulevard, Thomasville, Georgia on Monday, July 29, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., and on Wednesday, August 7, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.
For more information, please visit www.tcjackets.net.
