[State of Georgia]
[Newton Co., GA ]
It's that time of year again. When the tax assessments hit everyone's mailboxes in the latter part of May (most of the time) & then all local governments (BOC, BOE & various municipalities) finalize their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1.
There's been much discussion about the BOE not opting in to HB 581, meaning there's no cap on the percentage of increase of assessed value vs the Newton BOC which did.
First off, this is a bit of a misleading thing.
For the BOC M & O (maintenance & operations)/Budget, while there is a cap on the increase to valuation (meaning they'll be applying their millage based on a lower tax base), they can simply bump up the millage to where we'll most likely be seeing a tax increase regardless.
On the flip side, theoretically, even w/ higher assessments & therefore a higher tax base, the school tax could theoretically drop if they dropped the millage rate enough (yeah, LOL. I know, not going to happen...).
What I'm getting at is that the whole HB 581 thing is somewhat irrelevant.
At this point the big things obviously are:
- having reasonable fair market values calculated by the Tax Assessor's office leading to reasonable tax assessments
- (the big one) all local governments getting serious about getting lean & efficient in order to sharply reduce their budgets in order to get overall ad valorem taxation down
It's the second thing that is key, naturally, and it's not currently happening.
As Citizens for A Better Newton pointed out last week, Newton taxpayer will be seeing the BOE tax going up considerably due to adopted $265 million budget for a school district w/ flat enrollment & poor performance. An approx increase of of 7.5%.
Some of this is beyond the control of the elected members of the BOE, but a good amount is not.
And as many know, that's the lion's share of any property's tax bill -- the school tax.
Shifting gears,
The Newton Co BOC has their FY2026 Budget Presentation meeting tonight at 6pm before their regular meeting starting at 7pm at the Historic Covington Courthouse.
We'll know a lot more once all of this information is gotten.
Later in the month, they'll be adopting the millage. Folks really need to put some pressure on their Commissioners to see if all departments can cut some more so the millage can get as low as possible so as to get those tax bills as low as possible.
Click here to get the contact info for all members of the Newton Co BOC.
I'll be delving into the all the numbers once everything is live later this evening (will probably take me a day or two to get a piece out).
I'm also going to be looking further at the BOE budget & eventually the City of Covington once they have a proposed budget.
On a final note, right now it's looking as if the value of the entire tax base (tax digest) will be increasing, depending on various estimates, in the range 6-12%. Frankly, I'd be shocked if it's as low as 6% based on numbers I've been hearing from numerous property owners. I'm thinking it's probably going to be around 10% which, as many know, is ridiculous. The days of 10% per annum increases in market value is no longer occurring in the REAL Real Estate world.
'til next time,
MBM
