Property Tax Increase

The Turner County Board of Education has tentatively adopted a 2024 millage rate which will require an increase in property taxes by 8.23%.

All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Turner County Civic Center, 354 Lamar Street, Ashburn, Georgia on Friday, December 27, 2024 at 10:00 am and 1:00 pm.

Times and places of additional public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Turner County Civic Center, 354 Lamar Street, Ashburn, Georgia on Friday, January 3, 2025 at 6:00 pm. The tentative increase will result in a millage rate of 14.500 mills, an increase of 1.102. Without the tentative tax increase, the millage rate will be no more than 13.398 mills.

The proposed tax increase for a home with a fair market value of $125,000 is approximately $55.10 and the proposed tax increase for non-homestead property with a fair market value of $150,000 is approximately $66.12.

Each year, the Tax Assessor's Office 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 Tax Assessor is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment. This is called a reassessment. Turner County Tax Assessor's Office recently completed a reassessment of property and the new assessed values have gone into affect.

Upon the preparation of the total digest of taxable property, 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. When calculated, our school system rollback millage rate was 13.398 mills. If the school system simply adopted the rollback rate, we would lose over $1,300,000.00 in equalization funding. Currently, Turner County Schools are in the bottom third of equalized wealth in the state. As a result, our school system annually qualifies for Equalization Grant funding and will receive approximately $1.3 million this school year from this grant. Georgia Law (O.C.G.A. 20-2-165(9)(c) requires a minimum rate of 14 mills for  school systems to receive the grant. This would be equal to 4.6 mills of tax loss if the $1.3 million equalization grant were lost.

Our current millage rate is 15.973 mills. The Turner County Board of Education plans to roll back the millage rate to 14.5 mills. The total of increased local taxes is projected to bring in about $317,676.00 additional dollars above our rollback rate which would not come close to replacing the $1.3 million that we earn from our equalization grant.

Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public to express opinion regarding the proposal. All concerned citizens are invited to attend the three public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Turner County Civic Center, 354 Lamar Street, Ashburn, Georgia on December 27, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. and on January 3, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.

Superintendent Christy Wray