Tag Archives: LCC Millage

Millage Rate Meeting @ LCC Millage 2020-08-11

The board packet for the Tuesday Lowndes County Commission Regular Session says, on page 65, which is the agenda sheet for agenda item 6.a. Adoption of Millage Rate:

HISTORY, FACTS AND ISSUES: The Board of Commissioners is required to set the county-wide millage rate for 2020. A public hearing was held prior to this adoption as required. The county-wide millage should be set at 10.851 mills with the County receiving 8.601 mills, the Industrial Authority receiving 1.00 mill and the Parks and Recreation Authority receiving 1.25 mills. This represents a reduction of 0.087 mills.

I wondered: when was this public hearing?

[10.851 mills, 8.601 County, 1.00 VLDA, 1.25 VLPRA. reduction of 0.087 mills.]
10.851 mills, 8.601 County, 1.00 VLDA, 1.25 VLPRA. reduction of 0.087 mills.

According to the county’s online calendar, it hasn’t hapened yet, because it’s 5:00 PM that same Tuesday.

So if you’re going to the Regular Session, might as well show up half an hour earlier for the Millage Rate Meeting. Chances are, you’ll be the only member of the public there.

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!

Lowering the Millage Rate @ LCC Millage 2019-08-27

Finance Director Stephanie Black said due to the Property Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, if the tax digest (total assessed property value in the county) goes up, the county has to reduce the millage (tax per $1,000 of property value), or announce the difference as a tax increase and hold three public hearings, so they’re rolling back the millage rate slightly: 0.126 mills, down from 11.064 for 2018 to 10.938 for 2019. That’s Georgia Senate Bill 177, Act 431, signed April 30, 1999, effective January 1, 2000. Here is the millage resolution they adopted half an hour later, in the board packet, which LAKE only received after this millage meeting and after the Commission voted on this millage change:

[A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE 2019 AD VALOREM TAX MILLAGES FOR LOWNDES COUNTY]
A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE 2019 AD VALOREM TAX MILLAGES FOR LOWNDES COUNTY

She showed some quite informative slides, which for unknown reasons do not seem to be on the Finance Department’s web page. For example, she had a nice summary slide of the five chunks of sales tax these days:

  • 4 cents to the State of Georgia,
  • 1 cent to Local Option Sales Tax (LOST), split between county and its cities for property tax reduction,
  • 1 cent to Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), split between county and its cities for capital improvements,
  • 1 cent to Educational Special Local Option Sales Tax (E-SPLOST), split between the county and city school systems for capital improvements
  • 1 cent to Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST), regionally approved, and split between the county and its cities for transportation capital improvements.

Billed on the lowndescounty.com calendar as Millage Meeting, 5PM, Tuesday, 27 August 2019, in Commission Chambers before the voting Regular Session, as usual almost nobody attended, and nobody from the public spoke.

But you can see the whole eight-minute meeting for yourself. Here’s a LAKE video playlist:


Lowering the Millage Rate
Millage Meeting, Lowndes County Commission (LCC Millage),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, August 27, 2019.

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!

Lowndes County Millage Rate Meeting @ LCC Millage 2017-08-22

This is all she wrote on Lowndes County’s web pages: no agenda, no draft documents. Lowndes County Millage Rate Meeting

Date: August 22, 2017

Time: 5:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Location: Board of Commissioners Administration Building

Address: 327 N. Ashley Street
2nd Floor
Valdosta, GA 31601

What is the millage?
Still from WWALS video of Millage Public Hearing @ LCC Millage 2016-08-23

Rummaging around in the agenda sheet for 6.a. Adoption of Millage on the 5:30 PM Regular Session agenda, we find: Continue reading →

Millage Public Hearing @ LCC Millage 2016-08-23

People showed up and asked questions!

Finance Director Stephanie Black said they were having public hearings because they were required to when raising the millage. She said some of the reasons for the raise were a decline in the Local Option Sales Tax revenue, “because of the TATV” a decline in motor vehicle revenues, and a decline of 1.88% or $56 million in the property tax digest. TATV appears to be Ad Valorem Title Tax, which changed with HB 386 becoming law 1 March 2013, changing annual TATV to a one-time tax at vehicle purchase, and that new tax goes to the state, not the local government. As you can see in the Millage History slide pictured, they did Continue reading →

Precinct budget finger-pointing @ LCC Millage 2014-07-16

It’s still not clear why the Board of Elections couldn’t afford to keep precincts open, instead of closing more of them every year. But after several days of finger pointing this week, it looks like there will be funding to keep all the current precincts open. That’s good news, but if the fix was so easy, why was there ever a problem?

Oldest first, here’s a timeline of highlights.

Back on 10 March 2014, Deb Cox spoke to the Lowndes County Commission about the Board of Elections budget. I just listened to that video again. She did ask for more money for poll workers, and there were comments about how early voting wasn’t revenue-neutral. But I don’t see that she asked for money to keep precincts open, or ever mentioned precincts closing.

27 June 2014 I happened to see Continue reading →

Sparsely attended millage hearing @ LCC Millage 2014-07-16

To raise or not to raise, that is the millage question, and what to spend it on, but not many people showed up to ask.

This 6PM Wednesday 16 July 2014 millage hearing was one of the most lively, juding by his report, from which you can see that VDT political reporter Matthew Woody’s report on both hearings of last Wednesday, and that’s not saying much. In this evening hearing, Dennis Marks spoke for res publica, the rule of the public, for the public good. The other three commenters seemed to be against the millage increase.

One more milllage hearing (8:30AM) and an adoption meeting (9AM), both Wednesday 23 July 2014. Continue reading →