How is the millage determined?

net budget/net tax digest = millage

OR

$1,324,642/$832,061,837 = 1.591

Calhoun’s decision to affect a rollback millage rate does not mean residents will dodge tax increases.

City council members voted Dec. 7 to drop the millage rate to 1.591 from last year’s 1.615 mills, but said City Administrator Eddie Peterson, “I don’t think any resident should expect a tax decrease … due to the reappraisal this year.”

Peterson was referring to a general rise in property values from the county’s 100 percent reevaluation process, which residential tax bills will reflect this year.

Estimated net taxes levied come to $1,324,642 this year, indicating an increase of 1.2 percent due to real growth, Peterson stated. This is a drop from the $1.9 million the budget adopted June 15 called for in property tax collection, he pointed out.

During talks earlier this year, council members actually discussed raising the millage rate to 2.5, but Peterson said the board saw fit to take the rate down after the economy “kept collapsing.”

Late this summer, the council voted to increase charges for the city’s solid waste pickup service, which they predicted would help them not to raise the millage further than projected at the time.

Peterson explained that tax money from city residents supports three millage rates: that of the city’s general government, the city board of education and the county board of commissioners. The city receives 6.6 percent of tax revenues; the city board of education gets 57.1 percent, and 36.3 percent goes to the county.

This year, a delayed digest from the county prevented the city and the city schools from establishing a millage rate earlier in the year as they normally would. Peterson said the council usually votes on a new millage rate in October; the city schools’ rate was established in September last year.

As a result of the delay, city schools have been subsisting with the aid of loans. “The late tax digest has cost the City of Calhoun school system thousands of dollars in interest on borrowed money,” Peterson said.

He also said the city must stop drawing from reserves to make up the difference between this year’s and last year’s millage rates. “The city is continuing to go into reserves to fill this gap, and one day that will have to come to a halt,” he explained.

The city has taken opportunities to keep this year’s budget and by extension, the millage rate, low, according to Calhoun Mayor Jimmy Palmer.

The 2009-2010 budget dropped to $12,475,696 from $13,924,205 in 2008-2009.

He pointed out that the city has avoided bringing employees on in new positions, and has not filled existing vacant positions. However, he said the council has worked to cut numbers from the budget “without totally sacrificing services.”

“I feel that we have done the right thing …. (We have done) everything possible at this point, but we continue to look at other possibilities,” Palmer said.

City schools

The city school system’s millage rate will also drop this year to 13.865 from last year’s 14.08.

The city schools made the decision to minimize spending by cutting out approximately $350,000 worth of expenses from the budget, according to City Schools Superintendent Michele Taylor.

This cut, said Financial Director Don Hood, was a result of financial hardships in 2009, that forced the schools to rely on borrowed money through a City of Calhoun-issued Tax Anticipation Note (TAN).

City council approved another $3.5 million TAN for 2010 this week. The schools may or may not use the entire amount, Peterson stated on the council’s Dec. 14 agenda.

The loan has a fixed rate of 3.75 percent, and the account will be set up with Georgia Bank & Trust.

The school system already had a $1 million TAN through Regions bank, which was approved in January 2009.

Hood explained that the TAN allows the schools to borrow money without any collateral or down payment.

Money for the 2009 loan is due Dec. 31.

“We will be working to get that paid, and I don’t anticipate that will be a problem,” Hood said.

Hood explained that the TAN is paid by the City of Calhoun, and the school system, in turn, repays the city.

The TAN helps pay salaries, maintenance and operation costs, he said.

How are cities similar in population size to Calhoun doing?



Local Millage rates:

Rome: 8.52

Dalton: 3.002

Calhoun: 1.591

Cartersville: 1.380 The City of Calhoun administration offices will be closed Dec. 24 and 25. During the Monday, Dec 14 meeting, council members:

- Approved a beer-wine pouring license request by Jeff Erwin for Dub’s High on the Hog.

- Approved a beer pouring license request by Derrick Williams for Sharkey’s Seafood and Wings.

- Approved a beer liquor pouring license request by Luis Rey Fits Solis for El Rayos.

- Approved a beer wine package license request by Kishor Shah for R&R Beer and Tobacco.

- Approved taxi license renewal requests by Luis Garcia for Taxi Georgia, Maximiliano Campos for Taxi Max and Andres Hernandez for Oasis Taxi.

- Approved pawn license renewal requests for Roderic Aycox for Instant Car Loans, Hugh M. Austin for Title Exchange & Pawn and Douglas Driscoll for Park Avenue Pawn.

- Set a public hearing date of Jan. 11 for a taxi license request by Jose Manuel Lima Alveno for Taxi Service Emanuel’s.

- Set a public hearing date of March 8 for Pauline O. Davis Revocable Trust for a zoning change from R-2 to C-2 for a .923 acre parcel on Curtis parkway.

- Approved a request from Suzanne Roland with the Downtown Development Authority to reappoint Suzanne Hutchinson Smith to the DDA Board for an additional four-year term beginning Nov. 1 and ending Nov. 1, 2013.