The city of Sandy Springs will hold its first public hearing on next year’s millage rate on Tuesday, July 15, at 6 p.m. at City Hall Council Chambers, 7840 Roswell Road. The budget tentatively adopted by the Sandy Springs Mayor and Council requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate.
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 trends 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. There are two types of value increases made to a county tax digest: increases due to inflation and increases due to new or improved properties.
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. The city’s millage rate of 4.731 is set in the city charter and has not changed since incorporation. However, due to the increase in property values, the millage rate for FY15 reflects as 1.07 percent higher than the rollback millage rate computed by the Fulton County Tax Assessors Office.
Based on Georgia law, three public hearings will be held prior to the City Council finalizing the budget and setting a final millage rate. The two additional required public hearings will be held on Aug. 5 at 7:30 AM and 6 PM.
The city council adopted a $90 million general fund budget at its June 17 council meeting.