Cherokee County Commissioners Approve Property Tax Increase

Cherokee County commissioners have voted to raise property taxes, although they approved a maintenance and operations millage rate lower than the one originally advertised.

The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted July 16 to approve a maintenance and operations millage rate of 5.153 mills. The previous M&O millage rate was 4.954.

Commissioners initially advertised a potential M&O millage rate of 5.224 mills.

This rate determines property taxes that go to the county’s general fund.

Commissioners unanimously set the county’s parks bond millage rate at 0.27 and the fire district tax rate at 2.888 mills, resulting in a total rate of 8.311 mills.

Cherokee’s rollback M&O millage rate is 4.862 mills.

The 5.153 M&O millage rate will result in an increase in property tax revenues for the county’s general fund of 5.99% over the rollback rate.

One mill is equal to $1,000 of assessed value, after exemptions.

Cherokee County has had a homestead freeze, or a “floating” homestead exemption available to qualifying homeowners since 2008, which offsets increases in property values for homeowners.

According to the county, at the approved millage rate, a homeowner with a standard homestead exemption of $5,000 and a home value of $487,500 would expect to pay an additional $52.44 for the year, if it has not changed in value since 2023.

Cherokee’s overall projected property tax revenue increase is a little over $135 million, according to the county. This total includes a little over $87 million from the M&O portion, a little over $42 million from the fire district tax and almost $6 million from the parks bond tax.

The fire district tax rate at 2.888 mills is up 0.124 from the previous year. The fire tax option commissioners selected provides for 13 firefighter positions and the fourth battalion to start in October 2024, and uses $500,000 in reserves. It does not provide for a fire safety educator position the department asked for.

The parks bond millage rate, down 0.049 mills, is used to pay back the $90 million voter approved parks bond and is on a set schedule, according to the county.

Residents speak out

Commissioners held three public hearings to hear from citizens on the millage rate. One resident spoke at the July 2 meeting, 10 residents spoke at the 11 a.m. July 16 meeting and nine residents spoke at the 6 p.m. July 16 meeting, before the vote.

At the 11 a.m. meeting, the majority of those who spoke said they were in favor of raising the fire millage rate to add additional firefighters and a fourth battalion chief.

“This average increase per household for the fire fund provides expanded capabilities for our world-class fire department and aligns with and provides for their staffing needs as outlined in Section 2 of the fire department strategic plan, which was supposed to be achieved by 2023,” said William Spencer.

Several county residents who spoke during the 6 p.m. meeting expressed concerns about rising property taxes and the effect on the standard of living.

“The county is quick to just increase the millage rate when you don’t realize that you are missing revenue,” said Cherokee resident Liza Robinson. “Where you’re missing revenue — just in the research that I did with public records — there are additions to homes not being taxed, pools that aren’t being taxed, finished basements that aren’t being taxed and there are duplexes that aren’t being taxed — they are taxed as single-family homes. I think that a full audit should be done of our property tax department before we consider raising rates.”

Other residents suggested that commissioners consider trimming down line items in the upcoming budget, and working to slow the county’s growth.

Some voiced support for the increased fire tax rate to help fund more firefighters.

Bob Alford said that the county’s growth is putting pressure on local government services.

“I know raising taxes is not popular, but the county has kept the millage rate very low for a number of years,” he said. “We are the seventh largest county in the state, we’re not a rural county anymore. And we’re in the top five of the fastest growing-counties. This continued growth will continue to put more stress on county services, particularly fire, sheriff and public works.”

Another resident, Thomas Weaver, said he feels the Cherokee County Legislative Delegation let the citizens down by not introducing legislation to put a Homestead Option Sales Tax referendum on the ballot this year. The delegation may review the HOST referendum in the future.

Commissioners: Inflation driving up county services costs

Commissioner Steve West said that the board does set the appraisals — the state of Georgia sets the guidelines that the assessor’s office uses to determine property values.

“Please don’t think we are just dumping tax on you — we are doing it on ourselves too,” West said. “They set the guidelines, which we have to follow. We are at their mercy.”

Cherokee County Commission Chair Harry Johnston said that inflation raises the cost of county services.

“Inflation affects county services just the same as everyone else: gas goes up, electricity goes up, salaries go up, especially for public safety officers,” Johnston said. “Inflation affects you and affects us, but it doesn’t affect the M&O tax. The only way we can get any additional revenue is growth in the digest through real construction.”

“Doing this relatively small increase this year prevents us from having to do a larger increase next year,” Commissioner Corey Ragsdale said.

In 2024, Cherokee saw a tax digest increase of 6.63%, with 3.69% attributed to growth and 2.94% from inflation, according to a county report.

According to a June presentation from Chief Appraiser Steve Swindell, of 113,534 total taxable parcels in Cherokee, 71,448, or about 62.9%, went up in value, 29,590 decreased in value and 12,496 had no change. The final numbers may change as the appeals process is ongoing; the deadline to file an appeal was June 27.

The county’s proposed fiscal year 2025 general fund budget is $167.1 million. Commissioners are scheduled to hold a public hearing and consider adopting the budget this fall.

According to the county, an M&O rate of 5.153 mills will require the use of $7 million in reserves.

This rate will allow the funding for eight of the 36 currently vacant Cherokee Sheriff’s Office positions. The previously advertised rate of 5.224 mills would have allowed funding to fill 18 vacancies.

Ragsdale said the sheriff’s office has indicated that it’s unlikely that the agency could fill 18 vacancies.

“We do have an understanding with the sheriff that if he does fill eight and goes beyond that we would fund those out of reserves,” he said. “Hopefully he does that, but to keep the millage rate as low as we can we are going with this option to fill eight positions.”

Johnston has previously said that holding the M&O rate steady this year would force the county to enact a higher tax increase next year, and reducing it would require the county to eliminate many vacant sheriff’s office positions and use a large portion of reserves.

On the fire rate, Johnston said it allows the county to fulfill the fire department’s request to have three firefighters on every regular fire truck and four firefighters on every ladder truck, and have enough reserve staff to cover illnesses and people taking time off.

“This is a glorious thing, but it’s expensive,” he said.

For Cherokee County’s full millage rate presentation, visit tinyurl.com/e95hns8h .