Cherokee School Board Proposes Property Tax Hike

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The Cherokee County School Board on Monday announced its plan to increase the 2015 property taxes it will levy this year by 4.56 percent over the rollback millage rate.

This increase in the overall amount of property taxes to be collected for school purposes is necessary to cover a 2.85 percent increase in enrollment (about 1,100 additional students), $11.1 million in continued state education budget cuts in the school district’s earned revenue, various unfunded/under-funded state and federal mandates and longevity salary increments for classroom teachers and other staff.

Each year, the board of tax assessors is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the county. When the trend of prices on properties that have recently sold in the county indicate there has been an increase in the fair market value of any specific property, the board of tax assessors is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment. This is called a reassessment.

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 digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

Since the budget tentatively adopted by the school board requires a millage rate higher than the rollback rate, state law requires the board to hold three public hearings before it can adopt the budget and set a final millage rate.

All residents are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. July 9 and 6:30 p.m. July 22 at the Historic Canton High School/School Board Auditorium located at 111 Academy Street in Canton.

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