Pickens BOE sets millage after Executive Session for personnel
News September 2, 2021
JASPER, Ga. – A special called meeting of the Pickens County Board of Education met this week and put the final approval on the board’s millage rate.
Upon calling the meeting to order and approving the agenda, however, the Pickens County Board of Education retreated to an executive session to discuss, as Board Chair Sue Finley read, “the appointment, employment, compensation, hiring, disciplinary action or dismissal or periodic evaluation or rating of a public officer or employee. Or to interview applicants for the position of superintendent.”
The board took no action upon exiting executive session, but instead moved on to the regular agenda.
An official motion came to approve the Board of Education’s millage rate at 14.30 mills. Board Member Aaron Holland made the motion with a second from Steve Smith.
This sets the millage rate 0.53 mills lower than last year and continuing the steady decline according to the school’s 5-year history of the tax levied.
BOE FY 22 Initial Budget
The system estimates, according to the 5-year history, $22,648,385 in total M&) taxes levied. The budget denotes $24,908,755 in local taxes.
Finley said, “I would like to thank Mr. Young and Ms. Smith for their hard work to make this happen to bring our budget to the point where we can have our millage rate at 14.30 and still have our budget in the black. Thank you very much.”
A unanimous vote for both the millage rate and the FY 22 budget saw the board passing an initial budget for the year.
That budget totals $48.7 million, estimating that the school system’s fund balance will remain at $10.5 million.
Jasper final adoption for 5.655 mills
News October 15, 2020
JASPER, Ga. – The Jasper City Council special meeting met this week to discuss final adoption of the city’s 5.655 millage rate.
Through a brief meeting, the council unanimously voted for the final millage rate. The rate was originally proposed at 6.78 mills with a preliminary look into the expected budget for this year.
City Officials spoke through several recent meetings including the October Regular Meeting, discussing the process and looking at that preliminary budget. City Manager Brandon Douglas said he would be speaking with city departments and looking at ways to adjust the increase.
As they did this, during three public meetings and public input, the city came back with a lower 5.655 mills proposed and has been looking at this new number since last week.
With that, last week saw the first reading of the formal adoption of the millage rate. This week’s special meeting saw the second reading serving as the final adoption.
The process is not yet done, though, as this is only one of the steps towards finalizing the 2021 Budget. Now that the Millage Rate has been adopted, budget talks will begin soon in efforts to meet the city’s goal for budget adoption. According to City Manager Brandon Douglas, as previously reported in earlier meetings, that goal is to see a final adoption of the budget for the new year by December 7, 2020.
City property taxes being discussed this week in three meetings
News October 4, 2020
JASPER, Ga. – This week will see three meetings of the Jasper City Council with items directly focused on the Millage Rate that they have advertised at 6.78 mills.
Two of the meetings directly focus on the 2.125 mills increase as the city will meet twice on Monday, October 5, 2020, back-to-back, for a Public Hearing at 5:30 p.m. solely for discussion of the rate, and the city’s Regular Meeting at 6:00 p.m. Each of these meeting are being put on Zoom, found in the linked agendas, in efforts to allow more to attend, comment, and participate despite the virus.
Then, another meeting is advertised for October 12, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. for a Special Called Meeting for the Millage Rate. However, the city does not have an agenda attached for this meeting yet.
City Manager Brandon Douglas did comment in a previous meeting that they could find places in a cursory look at a preliminary budget to allow them to lower this rate, but no new information on any changes has been made to FYN at this time. The set rate is required by law to have several meetings and opportunities for the public to speak on the issue.
With this week providing those opportunities, and one meeting already having occurred in September, the city could possibly adopt the rate at next week’s October 12 meeting in time for budgeting process over the coming months in preparation for 2021. That budget adoption is expected in early December.
Douglas called for corrective action in that September meeting after noting an expected deficit for next year totaling over $550,000.
With only two months to discuss and adjust that budget before December, this week’s meetings will set the tone for the entirety of 2021 as the millage rate heavily influences the budget revenues. The city has also published the Five-Year-History of the tax levy to their website showing the increases in property values relative to decreases in others like motor vehicles.
The city did allow and ask for comments from citizens in person as well as those attending by zoom in the previous meeting indicating that those attending digitally this week should also expect a chance to comment and ask questions on this issue as well.