Decatur Sets Tentative Millage Rate For Coming Year
Decatur Metro | May 21, 2015 | 4:18 pm
The City of Decatur sent out this release this afternoon…
At their regular meeting on May 18, 2015, the Decatur City Commission adopted a tentative millage rate of 12.00 mills for general operations, capital improvements, bonded indebtedness and downtown development authority operations. This is a reduction from the 2014 millage rate of 13.00 mills; however due to property reassessments, this will represent an average increase of 5.03% in property taxes. This increase is consistent with new development and home sale data tracked by the City for the past three years. The State’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights requires that this increase be advertised. For property that was not reassessed there should be a decrease in property taxes.
Photo courtesy of the Decatur City Commission
Where are they spending the extra 5%? It seems they should have cut taxes more, since 5% is in excess of inflation.
They’re adding five staff positions and have asked to reclassify some existing ones according to the article on Decaturish yesterday.
So we have higher end properties. Concentration of people increasing. High end resturants all over Decatur.
More revenue generated. Where is the money going. While I appreciate the schools in Decatur. They are taking a lot of money out of the pocket of senior whose fixed incomes are not going up 5%.
It seems you can’t fight city hall. Accountability of the monies is something all citizens should dive in to.
Does this affect school taxes? The post only mentions that the millage rate applies to the portion of our property taxes that goes to the city, not the much larger portion that is the school tax. Does the city commission set the millage rate for the school system or does the school board do that?
The school board sets it and the commission approves it.
Indirectly, I suppose you could argue that the City lowering its rate takes some pressure off CSD, who will probably need to raise its rate to keep up with growing enrollments. I guess that’s a silver lining of the growing enrollments — housing prices up means more money for CIty, which doesn’t incur increased costs like CSD. No doubt the City Manager and City Commission are extremely grateful to the school system for the increased revenue.
Does anyone know when property reassessments will be mailed out?
The statute requires that assessments be sent out in May. If DeKalb continues its recent trend, they will be mailed on the last business day of the month.