Bulloch County Board of Education completed their second round of public hearings regarding a proposed millage rate increase. All three meetings drew small attendance where a few citizens spoke. The BOE was scheduled to vote on the proposed rate increase at their August 18th meeting. However, after there was some concerns brought forward regarding BOE members not attending the public hearings they voted to schedule three more hearings.
Due to a prior conflict Grice Connect was not able to attend the Thursday, August 31st hearing. We did attend both hearings on Thursday, September 7th at 9:00 AM and 6 PM.
A majority of BOE board members have been in attendance at each of the hearings. The Board will hold a final meeting on Friday, September 8, 2023 at noon to vote on the millage increase at the Board of Education complex located at 150 Williams Road in Statesboro.
Bulloch County Commissioners have called a special meeting at 3 PM on Friday, September 8th to approve the Board of Education Millage Rates for Calendar Year 2023.
Thursday morning hearing
Seven citizens attended the hearing and six of the seven Board of Education members attended the hearing. The meeting was opened by a presentation from Allison Boatright, CFO for the Board. Her presentation and supporting documents can be viewed here.
Three citizens signed up to speak. Below is an overview of their remarks:
Cassandra Mikell - expressed concerns that regardless of the tax increase it was her understanding that it does not guarantee equalization funding. The equalization funding was the driver for increasing the millage rate. After citizens spoke Superintendent Charles Wilson clarified that without this increase the equalization funding will be at risk. She went on to say elected officials have made folks feel hopeless. This increase impacts everyone. Conservatives don't vote for tax increases. Please vote against this.
Lisha Nevil - Retired after 30 years of teaching - 25 at Nevils - my concern comes as board members who are elected to represent the people of the county. We elected you to speak for us. But I don’t think any of you have had meetings with your community. People are not attending because they think you don’t care. You are going to vote the way you want to anyway. None of the board asked the voters what we thought about us. Look at wastefulness in this budget. Please listen and talk to us before just having a tax increase. She noted as a retired teacher she lives on a fixed income which is low enough that her child could qualify for reduced lunch at school.
City Council Candidate Lawton Sack - I am here to simply ask you to fight for us in a way the commissioners did not do. In listening the people. You are the next line of defense. I am doing my best to find out about this equalization grant, but it is difficult to get in touch with elected representatives to respond. I am hearing from a lot of people that we want folks to stand up for us. We don’t feel like our voices are being heard. There has to be a way to go back and fix this and find the numbers. Simply fight for us.
Equalization Grant Funding
Superintendent Charles Wilson stated that they are continuing to have conversations with the local State delegation to see if the equalization grant code can be changed in the future. This law impacts citizens across Georgia.
Thursday Evening Hearing
The meeting began with again with a presentation by Allison Boatright, CFO for BOE.
Eleven citizens attended the evening meeting. Five of the eleven citizens attended both the morning and evening meeting. Three citizens signed up to speak. Two of which spoke in the morning meeting as well. All eight Board of Education members attended the meeting.
Don Armel - In a twist, Armel actually thanked the Board members for doing what was necessary to make our schools some of the top schools in the state. He pointed out that $103 will be added to taxes based on the average. Divided by 12 months that is basically $8.60 per month extra. A very doable amount. This is the second lowest millage rate over the past eleven years. I have not heard anyone complaining about the reduction in prior years and commend the Board for being able to reduce this rate for so many years. As a former educator, I would hate to see the grant funding lost and negatively impact the school. It is important for the quality of our schools to remain high. Especially with the competition of other schools in neighboring communities. Quality of education is an important factor for citizens choosing to move into our area.
Cassanda Mikell - I have listened to many voices. Their biggest frustrations is that our voices are not being heard. Bulloch Board of Commissioners released documents today with the revised total listed. Does this mean that this is a done deal and truly nothing we can do? If this is a real hearing I ask for a private vote. So board members can vote in private.
City Council Candidate Lawton Sack - This has been a real learning experience. When you look at the declining rate and roll back they are still bringing in the same amount of money. We as Bulloch citizens believe they can take the same amount of money coming in and serve the students. We ask you to roll this back and keep on with the same budget. $103 may be doable without Bulloch County Commission and City of Statesboro increases. Work together with us and move forward.
Ginger Nevil - What if you went car shopping and needed to purchase two cars, but the dealer told you that if you purchase two they would through in a third car, even though you only needed two. Would you do it? This is what sees to be happening here. You are raising taxes that you don't need to make sure you get the extra grant funding. This is not something that a lot of people can afford right now. This is hard on so many. It is not the right time.
Public Notice of Tax Increase
Each year, the Bulloch County Board of Assessors is required to review the assessed value of 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 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 to 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.
In accordance with Georgia Code 20-2-165, boards of education must maintain an equivalent millage rate of at least 14 mills to prevent a loss of their state equalization grant funding. Currently, Bulloch County Schools’ state equalization grant funding totals more than $7.4 million. Due to the reassessment of property values in Bulloch County, the rollback millage rate required by Georgia law would cause Bulloch County Schools’ equivalent millage rate to fall below 14 mills, thus causing loss of the school district’s equalization funding. Therefore, the Bulloch County Board of Education intends to adopt an equivalent millage that is at least 14 mills and secure the school district’s equalization funding.
The 14-mill calculation requirement is composed of the property tax millage rate that the board must adopt annually along with the equivalent mills produced by the Local Option Sales Tax that the school district collects for maintenance and operations purposes. Based upon the value of the 2023 tax digest, per the Bulloch County Board of Assessors’ reassessment, a complete rollback of the district’s millage rate would be 7.304 mills, which when combined with the imputed value of Local Option Sales Tax collections of 5.522 mills, equates to only 12.826 mills, which is below the legal threshold.
In order to maintain the minimum 14 mills of property tax required under Georgia Code 20-2-165, the superintendent is proposing that the Bulloch County Board of Education adopt a property tax millage rate of 8.478 mills, bringing the total effective millage rate to 14.000 mills. Due to the nature of the millage rate rollback process, this action will effectively constitute an increase in property taxes.
Key Documents for the hearings can be viewed here.
