NEWTON COUNTY — The Newton County Board of Education (BOE) voted unanimously Tuesday night to formally adopt a resolution opting out of House Bill 581 (HB581).
HB581 is a statewide floating homestead exemption that Georgia voters passed on last November’s election ballot. The measure would essentially keep homestead property taxes from increasing each year, with some stipulations regarding inflation and major changes to the property.
However, the ballot measure also stated that each local governing entity – cities, counties and school boards – had until March 1 to evaluate how the homestead exemption would affect them and decide if they wanted to opt out of the measure.
Throughout the last two months, the BOE has assessed HB581 and heard reports on how the lack of revenue would affect their budgets in the years to come.
“We felt like we’re in a quandary, and we know the taxpayers need a break, but we just weren't convinced this was the right bill measure to do that, mainly because it changed the funding mechanism forever, and forever is a long time,” said Trey Bailey, District 1 BOE member. “And when you’re talking about kids and teachers – we just felt like we couldn't risk that.”
Citizens of Newton County came to the board’s three public hearings, expressing their personal opinions on the matter. Pleas ranged from struggling seniors who struggle to pay school taxes each year to former students imploring the board not to implement a measure that could defund schools.
Shakila Henderson-Baker, District 3 BOE member, acknowledged that the senior citizens of Newton County need a tax break and said she wants to work towards that in the meetings to come.
“The five of us have already said … we need to have a discussion about our seniors again, to have dialogue about that because the majority of the people that did come out, – and they are on fixed incomes – were seniors,” Henderson-Baker said.
Bailey agreed that help for senior citizens needed to be implemented but also felt that HB581 would not make that possible as it would limit the BOE’s funds.
“If we want to help our seniors, if we want to help control the millage rate in Newton County, we must opt out in order to have those other options on the table,” Bailey said. “If we do not opt out, then none of those options are there. Many of the things we want to see happen in our school systems that our community is asking us for, we’ll not be able to do those things unless we opt out.”
The board’s inclination to opt out of the measure seemed evident from the start. Unlike city and county governments, school boards cannot easily make up for lost funds by raising other taxes. The BOE expressed that they would likely have to raise the millage rate to fill the revenue void.
“We’re close to the numbers, we’re close to the data, we got good information, and it just seems like we couldn't get the math to add up to just accept this house bill as it is,” Bailey said.
But there may be changes made to the homestead exemption in the coming weeks.
House Bill 92 is a pending piece of legislation in the General Assembly. The bill proposes several different ways to edit the homestead exemption’s requirements, including revisiting the permanence of opting in/out, extending the opt out deadline and redefining “homestead.” But the bill’s provisions are changing daily as it works though the legislature, so nothing is certain.
Bailey seemed to allude to this bill, indicating that the board may be aware that the homestead exemption’s details could change in the future.
“I believe the legislature are [sic] going to relook at this and give us some better options that will both help the taxpayer and does not cripple school systems,” Bailey said.
