County No Longer Facing $3M Budget Deficit

Depending on the assessment values of their properties, Barrow County taxpayers may or may not see a tax increase in 2012.

Commissioners were considering a millage rate increase of about 2.6 mils to fund a , but an error in tax revenue projections uncovered by a reporter overestimated the shortfall.

After re-examination, the county would face a deficit of $805,655 if the millage rate were to remain unchanged.

Commissioners voted 4-2 Monday to move forward with increasing the current millage rate of 10.338 to the rollback millage rate of 10.930 to cover that shortfall.

The rollback rate is the rate that would produce the same total revenue on the current year’s tax digest that the previous year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

Tax Commissioner Melinda Williams said despite the increase in the millage rate, taxpayers might not see a tax increase. Williams told commissioners during a called meeting Monday that she had selected properties at random to see how the taxes would be affected.

“The ones that I looked at did not go up because their values went down,” she said.  

“If their assessment has gone up, the taxes will go up,” Chairman Daniel Yearwood said.

“Or if the assessment hasn’t changed, taxes will go up,” Commissioner Larry Joe Wilburn added.

County residents will have the opportunity to comment on the proposed budget during a public hearing that will be set prior to commissioners’ final vote.