Walton County to hold public hearings on proposed property tax increase of 4.73 %

Tentative Budget does not allow for rollback rate to be adopted

WALTON COUNTY, GA – (July 22, 2022) On July 15, the Walton County Board of Commissioners announced its intention to keep the 2022 millage rate at 10.413 – the same rate as 2021. However, the result of this will be a property tax increase of 4.73 % due to the county not intending to adopt the rollback millage rate.

Under Georgia law, when the total digest of taxable properties is prepared, a rollback millage rate must be calculated to produce the same total revenue on the current year that the previous millage rate would have produced without a reassessment.

Each year, the board of assessors is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the county. When the trend 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. 

Since the budget tentatively adopted by the Walton County Board of Commissioners requires a higher millage rate than the rollback millage rate, three public hearings have to be held to allow the public the opportunity to express their opinions on the increase. The first two of these will be held at 11 a.m. and again on 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 28, 2022. The third public hearing will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022, prior to the August Board of Commissioners meeting. All concerned citizens are invited to attend.

The Walton County BOC has tentatively adopted the millage rate of 10.413 mills, which represents an increase of .470 mills without the rollback rate. Had the rollback rate been adopted, it would have reflected a rate of 9.943 mills.

According to a press release from the BOC, the proposed tax increase is about $28.20 for a home with a fair market value of $150,000 and $23.50 for a non-homestead property with a fair market value of $125,000.

However, this is unlikely to be good news for property owners who already experienced sticker shock in May when receiving their new tax assessments reflecting higher property values. In many instances, those property values were significantly higher.