Commissioners Discuss Millage After Recalculation

ELLIJAY, GA – After recalculations for Gilmer County’s Millage Rate, the Board of Commissioners came to another special meeting in July to re-discuss the Rollback Rate.

Commission Chairman Charlie Paris stated the newer rate of 6.850 was a “much more palatable” rollback. The newer rate could mean about a $5,513 loss to the County Budget.

Discussions continued with the Board of Commissioners debating whether a rollback rate was to be accepted. While all of the Commissioners agreed the Rollback Rate was far better than the original 6.617 representing close to $300,000 lost in the budget, they began speaking about the use of a Rollback Rate compared to the County’s continued efforts to increase the tax digest.

Post Commissioner Dallas Miller stated he didn’t want citizens to think a rollback meant lower taxes or that staying with the current rate meant higher taxes. However, continuing to use the Rollback Rate every year meant that any efforts to grow the county or the digest would effectively throw away all of the work of the county. He went on to say that just following the Rollback Rate “has the same effect as if we never even re-evaluated or re-assessed our property. Why did we spend a lot of time and money reassessing property and then throw that work away basically?”

Post Commissioner Travis Crouch mentioned that the difference between the Rollback Rate and maintaining the current Millage Rate was not a large amount of money, but also that Miller had not mentioned the increasing costs facing the county in the coming years like health insurance costs, personnel, and others that the county cannot necessarily control.

Chairman Paris agreed that the rollback was an issue with the county’s efforts to increase the digest, but he felt the amount of money in difference between the rollback and the current rate was not worth having to run advertisement, by law, as a tax increase.

With a motion from Travis Crouch to maintain the current Millage Rate for a third year in a row and a second from Dallas Miller, the Commissioners officially voted 2-1 to maintain the current Millage Rate of 6.983. Chairman Paris was the dissenting vote of the three.

The official action from the meeting will begin advertising for the millage rate so that citizens will have an opportunity to speak to the Commissioners before the final vote.