Sandy Springs To Hold Tax Rate Hearings

Staff Report

The city of Sandy Springs next month will hold the first of three public hearings on its the fiscal year 2015 millage rate. 

The first public hearing will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 15 in the Council Chambers at Sandy Springs City Hall at 7840 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, Ga. 30350.  

The fiscal year 2015 budget adopted by the Sandy Springs City Council requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate. The city's current rate is 4.731, which is set in the its Charter and has not changed since incorporation. 

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.

So, due to the increase in property values, the millage rate for fiscal year 2015 reflects as 1.07% 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 Council finalizing the budget and setting a final millage rate. 

The two additional required public hearings will be held at 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Aug. 5, 2014