Key Points:
• The council passed a $42 million budget, while eliminating its millage rate cap from its charter.
• Dozens of speakers begged the council to allow a referendum so the voters could decide on the tax increase.
• Opponents say they will fight the change in court.
The Brookhaven City Council on Nov. 17 passed an ordinance to remove a cap on the city’s millage rate, despite pleas from residents to allow a decision to be made by referendum.
Opponents to the measure, including its former mayor J. Max Davis, said they will challenge the council’s decision in court.
“I will spend my own money fighting this,” said a visibly angry Davis, who led the city from 2012 to 2015. “This council stripped the public of the right to decide by using smoke, mirrors, and threats about cutting services.”
During a public hearing that stretched more than an hour, Davis and dozens of speakers decried the council’s consideration of an ordinance that would raise the millage rate from 2.74 to 3.54, and remove the language from the city’s charter that dictates the rate cannot be higher than 3.35. A mill is equal to a $1 tax for every $1,000 of assessed value.
According to staff documents for the meeting, the charter language states that “the millage rate imposed for ad valorem taxes on real property to fund General Operations and Maintenance of the City shall not exceed 3.35 unless a higher limit is recommended by resolution of the city council and approved by a majority of the qualified electors of the City of Brookhaven voting on the issue.”
However, City Attorney Jeremy Berry and Mayor John Park insisted that the city can remove the parameters, stemming from a 1983 “unofficial opinion” by then-Attorney General Michael Bowers that states it “could be done by home rule.”
Each of the council members, before the vote was taken, staunchly supported the removal of the millage rate cap. Council Member Michael Diaz equated the impact of the tax to 25 cents a day for senior residents with home values under $600,000. John Funny said the monthly increase would be comparable to “a cup and a half of Starbucks.”
City Manager Christian Sigman said increases in the costs for 911 services, police personnel, parks improvements, and the rising cost of health benefits, combined with the city’s homestead tax freeze, mean that services cannot be maintained with the current millage rate cap.
“There is a way to do it with cuts, but that’s not what I am hearing that the council wants,” Sigman said. “What we are doing now is unsustainable.”
Council members Funny and Jennifer Owens agreed.
“I personally think this isn’t what the people want,” Funny said. “We need to deliver the same level of service or better without going backwards.”
“I’m not going to be the one kicking this can down the road,” Owens said shortly before the vote.
However, every speaker at the meeting disagreed with the city and staff recommendation to ditch the millage rate cap without public input.
“I’m here to ask you for the citizens to have a right to vote on this,” Lauren Kiefer, a former mayoral candidate, said. “Consider the cost of a lawsuit, and the money that will be spent on that.”
Other speakers said the lifting of the millage rate cap will confirm an already-growing lack of confidence in the council, in light of the alleged cost overruns for City Centre, which has reportedly topped $84 million, $6 million more than the stated $78 price tag at its 2023 groundbreaking.
“Right now, we are standing in the Taj Mahal of lost trust,” said David Cohen. “I live near Dunwoody, and I see well-kept roads and parks. How are they doing more with less?”
Other speakers, including longtime Brookhaven resident Ronnie Mayer, said the council could cut staff positions and halt “frivolous” projects that would make a tax increase unnecessary.
“I love you all, but who’s running this city?” Mayer asked. “Don’t threaten me and my neighbors with cutting police or other services.”
Park, before the vote that unanimously supported the millage rate cap removal, said the decision was painful but necessary.
“This is a home-rule item and the state constitution is clear that we have this power,” Park said. “I put this on the agenda, and I take full responsibility for that.”
After approving the ordinance, the council passed its $42.7 million 2026 budget by a 4-0 vote.