Whitfield County Schools mulling millage rate increase

DALTON, Ga. (WDEF)- Property owners in Whitfield County will likely see an increase in their property taxes this year.

In Georgia, school boards can set a millage rate to help fund their operations based on the revenue from tax digests.

However, an issue with Whitfield County’s tax digest is causing the school board to enter into the process later than expected, and with non-finalized numbers, as discussed in two meetings today.

This is because earlier this year, Whitfield County Tax Assessor Danny Sane decided not to endorse the 20-24 tax digest due to anomalies with property tax assessments throughout the county.

So instead, the county will be using a temporary tax digest that will be the 2023 tax digest plus 10 percent to get to the values that will be taxed by the millage rate.

So what is the expected hit for taxpayers?

A millage rate is defined by mils, which is a dollar per one thousand dollars of assessed value of a home.

In Georgia, the assessed value applies to 40 percent of a home’s value.

So let’s break that down using the average value of a Whitfield County home, which is roughly $175,000.

The assessed value of that home would be $70,000, meaning one mil is $70.

Last year’s millage rate for the schools was 18.50, which is multiplied by the value of one mil.

This means the amount this homeowner would pay is $1,295.

However, let’s analyze the increase this year for that same homeowner.

The two main changes are the value of the property going up by 10 percent and the millage rate increasing by over two mils.

In order for this same homeowner to pay the same amount in taxes, the millage rate would have to be rolled back to 16.822.

However, the proposed millage rate is 18.85, which results in this paying over $1,450, an increase of over $150 dollars.

It is worth noting that the original 2024 tax digest that was thrown out raised property values on average by about 17 percent, lower than the tax digest’s across the board 10 percent raise in value.

The Financial Director for Whitfield County Schools, Kelly Coon, says, “The reassessment is really what drives the millage rate, but we’ve never had a year like this, it’s been very unique. As I said in the presentation. The taxpayer bill of rights is about a one month process, we want to be able to get this process started. That’s why we’re using an estimated digest.”

The school board expects to have that temporary tax digest by the end of next week.

There will be another public hearing with those finalized numbers the morning of November 6th at 7:30 a.m.