Every summer, the same thing happens across Georgia. County commissioners, city councils, and school boards quietly schedule a series of public meetings. The notices go up. The hearings are held. The votes are taken. And millions of Georgia homeowners never know it happened — until the tax bill arrives.
If you own property in Georgia, right now is the time to pay attention.
What they are actually voting on
Let’s start with the basics, because local governments are counting on you not knowing them.
Your property tax bill is calculated using something called a millage rate. One mill equals $1 in tax for every $1,000 of your property’s assessed value. In Georgia, that assessed value is set by law at 40 percent of what your home is worth on the open market.
Here is how the math works: Take your home’s fair market value, multiply it by 40 percent to get the assessed value, divide that number by 1,000, then multiply by the millage rate. The result is your property tax bill.
Your county, your city, and your local school board each set their own millage rate. Those rates are combined to produce the total amount you owe every year.
The trick hiding in plain sight
Here is where things get interesting — and where a lot of Georgia homeowners get fooled.
Property values across the state have been rising. That means even if your local government keeps the millage rate exactly where it was last year, you are almost certainly going to pay more in taxes. The math does not lie: a higher assessed value multiplied by the same rate equals a higher bill.
Georgia law actually has a name for this situation and a mechanism to address it. It is called the rollback rate — the millage rate that would bring in the exact same amount of tax revenue as the year before, adjusted for the rise in property values. If a government body sets its millage rate above the rollback rate, even if the rate itself has not changed from last year, Georgia law requires them to call it what it is: a property tax increase.
That legal requirement applies to the official public notice published in the newspaper and the public notice on the government’s own website. It does not apply to its Facebook page, its Instagram account, or how it spins the press release it sends to local media.
And they know it.
Watch what they say — and what they do not
Scroll through the social media feeds of Georgia counties and cities this time of year and you will see a familiar pattern. Bold graphics. Friendly fonts. Announcements that the millage rate is holding steady for another year. Some governments have been doing this for so long they treat it like a milestone worth celebrating.
What those posts often leave out is the part where your tax bill is still going up.
The legal notice in the printed newspaper is required by state law to say “Notice of Property Tax Increase.” The Facebook post announcing the same vote is not required to say anything of the sort. So it usually doesn’t.
This is not illegal. It is not even technically inaccurate. A government can truthfully say it did not raise the millage rate while simultaneously collecting more money from you than it did last year. Both things can be true at the same time. That is exactly the point.
Three meetings, and you can walk in the door
Here is what they are required to do when they set a millage rate above the rollback rate: hold three public hearings before the vote. Three. Georgia law mandates it.
At least one of those hearings must be held in the evening, between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., specifically so working residents can attend. Notices for the hearings must be published in the local legal organ — the designated newspaper of record for your county. Dates, times, and locations are also required to be posted on the government’s website.
Every one of those hearings is open to the public. You have the right to walk in and speak. That’s why they are called public hearings.
When you go, be ready to be concise. Public comment periods are often limited to about three minutes per speaker but the public has the opportunity to tell their local elected officials what they think about this tax increase and — more importantly — to let local officials know the community is watching them.
How to find out if your government is holding these hearings
Start with your county’s website and your city’s website. Look for budget or millage rate information. If you see a notice of property tax increase — even tucked into a page full of language about the rate staying flat — that is your signal that hearings are scheduled or already underway.
Also, any time you notice an announcement about three meetings to set the millage rate, that means your property taxes are going up. If the government isn’t planning to raise the tax rate, they aren’t legally required to hold three meetings, so those three meetings are your clue.
Check the legal notices section of your local newspaper. Georgia law requires the hearing notices to be published there. Now, since newspapers have gotten harder to find nowadays, Georgia’s newspapers have banded together to create a website that houses every public notice — at least at the county level. Go to georgiapublicnotice.com and see what your county is up to. Even if you don’t subscribe to your local newspaper, you can view public notices on the Georgia Public Notice site.
If you cannot find the information easily, call your county tax commissioner’s office or your city clerk. They are required to have this information and to make it available to you.
The bottom line
Georgia governments are not doing anything illegal when they announce a stable millage rate while collecting more of your money. But they are banking on the fact that most residents will think “kept the same millage rate” means no tax increase.
The three public hearings exist precisely because the law recognizes that taxpayers deserve a chance to respond before the vote is final. That window is open right now in communities across the state. The question is whether you walk through it.
B.T. Clark is an award-winning journalist and the Publisher of The Georgia Sun. He has 25 years of experience in journalism and served as Managing Editor of Neighbor Newspapers in metro Atlanta for 15 years and Digital Director at Times-Journal Inc. for 8 years. His work has appeared in several newspapers throughout the state including Neighbor Newspapers, The Cherokee Tribune and The Marietta Daily Journal. He is a Georgia native and a fifth-generation Georgian.
- B.T. Clark
- B.T. Clark
- B.T. Clark
- B.T. Clark
