The Houston County Board of Education announces its intention to increase the 2021 property tax levy by 4.01 percent over the rollback millage rate. 

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 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 increase the assessment.  This is called a reassessment.

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. 

The budget adopted by the Houston County Board of Education requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate by 0.508 mills.  By law, this must be advertised as a property tax increase.  The proposed millage rate for 2021 of 13.183 is in fact lower than the 2020, 2019 and 2018 rate of 13.297 mills, and lower than all actual rates since 2008. Therefore, before the Houston County Board of Education can set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase held as follows: the first to be held at the Houston County Career Academy, 1311 Corder Road, Warner Robins, Georgia on July 27, 2021 at 12:00 p.m.; and the second and third at the Houston County Board of Education, 1100 Main Street, Perry, Georgia on August 9, 2021 at 6:00 p.m., and August 10, 2021, at 1:00 p.m.