Across Georgia last November, voters heartily threw their support behind an amendment to the state constitution that sought to slow the escalation of property taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two out of three voters favored Constitutional Amendment 1, which allowed communities to decide whether the annual rise in their property tax values should be linked to the generally lower rate of inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, not much happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although most cities and counties opted into the tax slowdown, most school districts did not. And education is generally the lion\u2019s share of a local property tax bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, lawmakers decided to give it another go. House Bill 92, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law immediately after the General Assembly sent it to his desk on\u00a0April 1, gives cities, counties and school systems until the end of this month to reconsider the offer to tighten their own purse strings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The measure is \u201cdesigned to protect homeowners from exceedingly high property tax assessments,\u201d the chief sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, said in February during the first of several legislative votes. \u201cIt would, I think, hopefully give the locals some more time to understand the value of allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The House of Representatives went 173-1 for the bill. It was initially controversial in the Senate, but amendments led to similar enthusiasm there. The Senate version passed the House unanimously in late March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the bill was winding through the legislature, local elected officials were already declining the offer. As of mid-March, according to the most recent available information from the Secretary of State\u2019s office, 71% of the state\u2019s 180 school districts had opted out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About a quarter of the state\u2019s 537 towns and cities joined those school systems, and just over a third of the 159 counties did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schools are far less likely to voluntarily slow down their tax revenue increases for a simple reason: education is expensive, especially when enrollment is growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, unlike cities and counties, there is a limit on how high school systems can raise their tax rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some clarity is needed here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A rising property tax bill is driven by two mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, there is the property tax rate, which is expressed in \u201cmills,\u201d with one mill resulting in a tax bill of $1 for each $1,000 in assessed property value. School boards, city councils and county commissions set their own millage rate. And they often get criticized when they raise it, creating potential difficulty at re-election time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Second, is the property value. That\u2019s set by county appraisers who value each property based on sales of similar properties nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is the part of the tax bill that lawmakers want to link to the rate of inflation. Especially in growing areas, property values tend to rise faster than the inflation rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their constitutional amendment targeted the portion of the tax bill that is driven by property values by increasing the value of a property \u201chomestead,\u201d which is basically a tax discount for owner-occupied homes, by the amount of any increase in the official valuation, minus inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confused?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So was Allen Fort, the longtime superintendent of the Taliaferro County School District, the smallest system in Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s far more complicated than it should have been,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People don\u2019t understand the mechanism, he said, and they don\u2019t understand the implications for schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n