If you pay attention to your County tax bill, you may have noticed the millage has fluctuated quite a bit over the last few years. Though it’s certainly possible, that fluctuation was overshadowed by our recent reassessments.
The AJC reports that county taxes for Decatur residents increased 5% last year.
But in CEO Lee May’s budget draft for the upcoming year, all DeKalb city residents would see a decline in their county tax rate, according to the AJC. In Decatur, the rate would drop 15% from 2015 to 10.08 mils. All other DeKalb cities would also experience a 10%-17% decline in their millage, with Atlanta DeKalb residents receiving the most relief.
Hey, it’s not going to be a ton cash, but every little bit helps these days!
Decatur residents only pay for select DeKalb services with their taxes. Prior to 2010, city residents were “double-taxed” on some county services they didn’t utilize, like basic police protection – since Decatur has it’s own police force. Decatur helped lead the way to change state legislation that allowed cities to opt out of certain services, which the commission did for the first time back in 2010. History lesson over!
The DeKalb County Commission is scheduled to vote on the budget by the end of February 2016.
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The article in the AJC is misleading. The cities tax rates for Dekalb County are not going down, they are simply being lowered from what was a manufactured high rate. If you look at the rate change from two years ago Decatur’s rate is still up (5%) as are most Dekalb cities. The county has been able to manipulate this rate by moving funds between special tax districts at unrealistic amounts to raise the rate in cities while maintaining a constant rate for unincorporated areas thus the continued statement from the county ” budget includes no tax increase” while those of us who live in cities have seen severe increases. It catches up with them eventually which is what has happened this year. The Dekalb budget every year is an adventure and should be watched closely.
Bill Floyd Managing Director Dekalb Municipal Association
Thanks Bill! Can you perhaps go into a bit more detail on this point?
“The county has been able to manipulate this rate by moving funds between special tax districts at unrealistic amounts to raise the rate in cities while maintaining a constant rate for unincorporated areas thus the continued statement from the county ” budget includes no tax increase” while those of us who live in cities have seen severe increases.”
I think I would benefit from a better idea of what exactly they are doing.
Glad to do that but it gets complicated quickly. You might look back at the first or second year after the legislative change (2011 or 2012) and look at the fire district. This was their first attempt and they moved a significant amount of money from the general fund into the fire district which raised the rate for fire significantly. This actually caused a large percentage increase in every city except Decatur because we have our own fire department, so that year Decatur’s rate went down while every other city incurred a large increase. They pair this with lowering the rate for the General Fund which caused a zero change effect for the unincorporated areas. I recommend an article by Jim Burgess former Mayor of Social Circle and former Executive Director of GMA on double taxation which deals with this issue.
The Dekalb tax bill for my CoD home almost doubled this year, up 92% while appraised value after appeal is up only 28%. Could use an adjustment.