City of Brookhaven City Manager's Office assigned this issue to City of Brookhaven City Manager's Office

Is City of Brookhaven in violation of state law, or DeKalb County? DeKalb County sets the property tax valuation and has increased them.

The city is in control of the city millage rate portion of our tax bill, if it is set at 2.85 mills just like last year then no additional notifications are required.

Maintaining the millage rate at the same level, is NOT the same as decreasing our taxes. The Mayor and City Council promised to decrease our taxes. No excuses!

@WhoDean

Actually, the City must notify if they set the millage rate above the "roll-back" rate.

Per state law, the roll-back rate would result in the same total tax burden. That would be about 2.59 mils not 2.85 mils.

Setting the tax rate at 2.85 mils will result in an additional $700,000 in property taxes taken by the City a.k.a. a tax hike.

Have you performed an analysis to determine what portion is related to all the new homes, apartments and businesses that have been constructed and/or opened since the creation of the city? What amount is due to new development versus increased value of existing homes? Without performing that analysis, you cannot determine if increased property values have indeed led to a tax increase.

Now that the economy is recovering and our city/county/state enjoy increased tax revenue it is not the time to hike the millage rate. Today Gov. Deal said the State is 700 million above 2013. In addition everyone's property value has increased approx. 20% so property taxes will soar without a millage increase.

Good point Jeff. An open and transparent government would have been on top of this issue and performed such an analysis and shared their findings.

GTU, I stand corrected! However, this roll-back rate adjustment is at the county level, so we have good old DeKalb to watch for compliance. What are our chances they keep their greedy hands off that increase?

https://etax.dor.ga.gov/ptd/adm/taxguide/rights.aspx

Prevention of Indirect Tax Increases

Each year there are two types of value increases made to a county tax digest, increases due to inflation, and increases due to new or improved properties. There are no additional requirements if the levying authority rolls back the millage rate each year to offset any inflationary increases in the digest. If it does not, a local levying authority must notify the public that taxes are being increased.

Local levying authorities would include the county governing authorities, school boards and municipal governing authorities.

The Revenue Commissioner will not authorize the collection of taxes on any digest without a showing by the official submitting the digest that the local levying authorities have complied with the law.

• Rollback of Millage Rate to Offset Inflationary Increases

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia Law requires that a rollback millage rate 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 reassessments occurred.

If the county elects to set their millage rate higher than the rollback rate, they will be required to hold three public hearings, place notices of the increase in the paper and issue press releases.

• Notification of Tax Increase With Three Public Hearings

The levying authority must hold three public hearings allowing the public input into the proposed increase in taxes. Two of these public hearings may coincide with other required hearings associated with the millage rate process, such as the public hearing required by O.C.G.A Section 36-81-5 when the budget is advertised, and the public hearing required by O.C.G.A. Section 48-5-32 when the millage rate is finalized. One of the three public hearings must begin between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM in the evening.

• Publish Notice in Paper One Week Before Each Hearing

The levying authority must publish a notice in the paper one week in advance of each of these three public hearings.

• Press Release to Explain Tax Increase

The levying authority must issue a release to the press explaining its intent to increase the taxes.

oops

ok

Dean, why DeKalb? Is the City of Brookhaven not responsible for the roll-back of its taxes?

This issue has been resolved by the City of Brookhaven and service request ID 1114408 is now closed. The notice has been posted to the City of Brookhaven’s website, and a press release has been delivered to local media.