This is a press release from the Bulloch County Board of Education.
The Bulloch County Board of Education is going through its annual process of setting the school district’s maintenance and operations (M & O) millage rate. While the district’s proposed 2024 rate is lower than last year’s, is its lowest in more than 20 years, and one of the 10 lowest of Georgia’s 180 school districts, it is still considered a tax increase, as explained below. The community is invited to public hearings on Aug. 8 and Aug. 15 to learn more.
What is the Board of Education’s process?
At its July 25 work session, the Board of Education heard from Alison Boatright, the chief financial officer for Bulloch County Schools, and Superintendent of Schools Charles Wilson. They recommended a 2024 M&O millage rate of 7.932 mills to the Board. The Board voted unanimously (8-0) to tentatively adopt the new rate.
What does the new rate mean; How does it compare to last year’s rate?
The school district’s 2023 M&O millage rate was 8.478 mills, so the proposed 2024 rate is 0.546 mills (6.44%) lower. Even though the millage rate is lower, it is considered a tax increase (see why below).
For this reason, three public hearings will be held before the Board votes to officially set the 2024 millage rate at its scheduled work session on Thursday, August 22, at 6:30 p.m.
Why is it a tax increase?
This is a complex answer, but it comes down to state law surrounding state education funding, along with some simple addition and subtraction.
- Each July, the Bulloch County Board of Assessors reviews property values. If property values go up, they re-determine the assessed value of the property. This is known as a reassessment.
- If a reassessment occurs, which it did this year, Georgia law requires the millage rate to be rolled back to ensure the same total tax revenues are levied as the previous year, despite the increase in property values, unless the tax levying authority wants to take action to keep or increase the millage rate.
- The Tax Assessor’s Office then shares the rollback rate with the school district’s chief financial officer and superintendent of schools. They review the rate to make one of the following recommendations to the Board of Education:
- Leave the school district’s M&O millage rate the same (or increase it);
- Fully lower it to the calculated rollback rate; or
- Partially lower it to the minimum requirement for state equalization funding.
In the past 11 years, the school district has implemented full rollback rates nine times and partial rollbacks twice; last year was the only millage rate increase.
It sounds like a full rollback of the millage rate should always be the easy choice, but this is where Georgia law and simple math prevail for school districts. Georgia law requires boards of education to keep a millage rate of at least 14 mills in order to receive state equalization funding. To not comply with state law would mean Bulloch County Schools could lose $9.8 million in state equalization funding this year.
However, as a benefit to local property tax payers, Bulloch County harnesses the power of being a regional education, retail and tourism hub to collect local option sales taxes, which are paid by residents, non-residents, and those who do not own property. These revenues are collected by the school district.
Bulloch County Schools is one of seven school districts in the state who is allowed to then offset its property tax millage rate with the local option sales tax revenue it receives, in the form of an imputed equivalent millage rate. This is why Bulloch County Schools has been able to maintain the lowest millage rate in an eight-county region and one of the lowest in the state.
4. To determine its M&O millage rate, the school district adds the proposed property tax rollback rate to the imputed local option sales tax equivalent millage rate. If the two rates do not equal at least 14 mills, the property tax must be adjusted upward until the two equal at least 14 mills of property tax.
- This year’s imputed local option sales tax millage rate equivalent is 6.068 mills.
- The proposed (full) rollback rate of 7.558 mills plus 6.068 mills mentioned in the line above equals 13.626 mills, which is not high enough to meet the state’s requirement of 4 mills .For this reason, the school district must levy enough of a millage rate to meet the 14 mills state requirement; in this year’s case, this results in a partial rollback of the property tax millage rate instead of a full rollback.
- The Board of Education has tentatively adopted the partial rollback rate of 7.932, which is 0.546 mills higher than the rollback rate. This results in a tax increase even though the millage rate is lower than last year’s.
Public Hearings
The Board of Education invites the community to three public meetings about this tax change. They will be held in the boardroom of the school district’s Central Office, located at 150 Williams Road, in Statesboro.
- Thursday, August 8, 2024, at 9:00 am
- Thursday, August 15, 2024, at 11:30 am
- Thursday, August 15, 2024, at 6:00 pm
How Much More Will You Pay?
For a home worth $250,000, the tax increase will be about $36.65. For other properties worth $250,000, the increase will be about $37.40. While this is an increase, it is less than what the average taxpayer would pay, $53.50 and $54.60 respectively, on the same average property value if the Board of Education was not taking action to reduce last year’s rate from 8.478 mils to 7.932 mils.
