Woodstock To Hold Property Tax Rate Hearing on Monday

The Woodstock City Council on Monday will hold the first public hearing for residents to speak out on the city’s plans to set its property tax rate.

The public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. at the Chambers at City Center in conjunction with the council’s meeting. City staff members are recommending to the council the city rollback its millage rate from 7.889 mills to a proposed 7.25 mills.

Each year, the Cherokee County Tax Assessor is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the city.

When the trend of prices on properties that have recently sold in Woodstock indicate there has been an increase in the fair market value of any specific property, the tax assessor 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 Woodstock;s proposed rate is higher than the rollback rate of 7.156, Woodstock property owners will see a tax increase.

Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

Two additional public hearings will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 18 and 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 25.

A final hearing will be held during the council’s meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 25, and the council is slated to adopt the rate at that time.