PORTERDALE, Ga. — The city of Porterdale held its first of three public hearings on next year’s millage rate on Aug. 4.

Currently, the city’s rate sits at 13.899 mills—a relatively high number compared to the city of Covington and Newton County, both of which are in the single digits.

The legal advertisement that the city of Porterdale produced indicated a desire to raise the millage rate by one mill. City Manager Vickie Short explained during the public hearing that the city is undecided on increasing by an entire mill. However, they wanted to have the flexibility to go up to a mill higher during council discussion.

“When we advertise these public hearings, we advertise going higher with the expectation, staff’s expectation is that most elected officials are not going to go with that amount,” Short said. “So when you see the amount that’s in the newspaper [legal advertisement], it’s always more than what is chosen. We use that as a cushion. State law requires that. We can’t go up [from what is advertised], but we can go down.”

Short presented the council with three prospective millage rate scenarios:

• Keep the millage rate at 13.899 mills: Results in a 3.87% increase and gives the city a $2,997.40 surplus
• Increase the millage rate by 0.5 mills to 14.399 mills: Results in a 7.61% increase and gives the city a $38,411.55 surplus
• Increase the millage rate by one mill to 14.899 mills: Results in an 11.35% increase and gives the city a $73,825.69 surplus 

During the meeting, Lowell Chambers, who was serving as mayor pro-tem in absence of Mayor Michael Patterson, said that the city does not have a reserve fund, but a surplus income could be the beginning of that fund.

“Unfortunately, we do not have a reserve fund,” Chambers said. “It is strongly recommended by experts in this field to have a reserve fund of three months, six months, 12 months of operating expenses, cash in the bank. So if this is $3,000 [surplus with no rate increase]…that could be the first drop in the bucket of our reserve.”

During the opportunity for public comments, one woman asked why the millage rate in Porterdale was already so high compared to the rates of Newton County’s other cities. Chambers explained how the city’s makeup leads to this number using a mathematical analogy.

“The value of the property times the millage rate equals the money income,” Chambers said. “So if you have very valuable property—you have a lot of factories, you have a lot of business, you have a lot of high-value things—you can have a very low millage rate and still come up with that amount of money. However, if you have low-value properties, and you have a city to run, you're going to have to have a higher millage rate so that, if ‘A’ times ‘B,’ if ‘A’ goes down, ‘B’ has to go up in order for ‘C’ to be the same. 

“So that’s really one of the fundamental things, that Porterdale does not have industry. We do not have a lot of businesses. We do not have a lot of valuable commercial properties. We are all virtually residential ownership properties.” 

Short added that the city hopes that the tax burden can begin to be lifted off residents in the future and offset by coming industry, such as the Cedar Shoals development and the proposedl data center that has been eyeing the old Oaks Golf Course property.

Porterdale did opt in to the House Bill 581 floating homestead exemption, but Short said she does not expect the city to see its impact until next year.

The council members seemed inclined against raising the rate for next year, but no final decisions will be made until after all three public hearings.

“I know that we need more money; the city does need more money,” said Councilwoman Jill Minnoia. “But right now, I just think with the cost of everything going up and most of our citizens – a lot of our citizens being on fixed incomes – that it may be hard to do. I’m more in favor of just staging where we are.”

The city’s millage rate has lowered in recent years, with the rate set at 17 mills in 2017 and having made its way nearly five mills lower by 2024. 

“I would like to stick with our trend over the last several years of not having an increase in the millage rate,” Chambers said. “...Hopefully in the future, we’ll have a little bit more flexibility to actually come down some more.”

Porterdale has two more public hearings scheduled for Aug. 14. The first is at 9 a.m., and the second is at 6:30 p.m.