In a prepared statement, county officials said "this millage rate increase for City of Gainesville property owners is a result of changes in the state law related to Tax Equity Legislation (HB489) adopted by the Georgia General Assembly."
They added that these taxpayers received a millage decrease of 0.01 mills due to property reassessments (before Tax Equity changes).
Taxpayers outside the City of Gainesville will receive a millage decrease of 0.02 mills due to property reassessments. Each year, the board of tax assessors is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the county.
County officials said when the trends of prices on properties that have recently sold in the county indicate that 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.
When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia Law requires that a rollback millage 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 reassessment occurred.
The budget proposed by the Hall County Board of Commissioners does require a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate for Gainesville-Incorporated only.
The public hearings will be held as follows:
Tuesday, June 8, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. at the Georgia Mountains Center, Gainesville
Monday, June 21, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. in the Board Room - 711 Green St, Gov't & Education Bldg
Thursday, June 24, 2004 at 9:00 a.m. at the Georgia Mountains Center, Gainesville
(Adoption of the Budget and Millage Rate will immediately follow this hearing.)
http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/6/158354