City of Social Circle opts to adopt low tax rate

Council votes to adopt smaller millage rate 

Property owners in the city of Social Circle got a surprise tax break last week, albeit a modest one for most of them, as the city council approved a property tax millage rate lower than the rate they had advertised they were set to adopt.

Following the last of three required public hearings on the proposed municipal property tax rate of 7.756 mills (the same as the previous fiscal year), held as part of the council’s monthly voting meeting on Tuesday, the council put in place a 7.6-mill rate, enthusiastically endorsing a motion for the lower rate made by Councilman Steve Shelton.

One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 in the assessed value of a piece of property. The assessed value is 40% of the property’s fair market value, as determined by the Walton County Tax Assessor’s Office.

Here’s how the math works out for the owner of a home with a fair market value of $350,000 inside the city limits of Social Circle: First, 40% of the fair market value of that home is $140,000. Applying the 7.756-mill tax rate produces a municipal property tax bill of $1,085.84. Applying the 7.6-mill rate adopted by the city council on Tuesday results in a property tax bill of tax bill of $1,064.00.

Thus, the lower millage rate adopted Tuesday by the council will save the owner of that $350,000 house a total of $21.84.

Prior to the unanimous vote on the lower millage rate, Social Circle City Manager Eric Taylor reminded the council that the city government staff had prepared the nearly $9 million general fund budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 – the spending plan was approved by the council in June – with the 7.756 mill rate (the same as for the previous year) in place for property tax revenue.

Subsequently, though, Taylor said, the city learned that its tax digest – the taxable value of all the property in the city – had increased. That increase made the lower millage rate possible, while the city can still meet its budget for the fiscal year, according to Taylor.

In that budget, property taxes are projected to bring nearly $2.8 million in revenue to the city, with a $1.6 million transfer of fund from the city’s gas utility operations, a $1.13 million infusion of the city’s share of countywide local option sales tax dollars, a $300,000 transfer from the city’s general fund reserves, and assorted other revenue from fines, forfeitures, fees, permits, grants, an electric franchise fee also contributing to the bottom line.

The council’s vote on the lower millage rate was 5-1, with Councilman Tyson Jackson casting the lone dissenting vote. Jackson cast his vote after learning that the “rollback rate” — the millage rate at which the city would raise roughly the same amount of property tax revenue as was raised in the previous fiscal year  — was 7.183 mills.