Augusta leaders cut tax rate to help offset higher assessments

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Augusta Commission voted Tuesday to ease taxpayers’ pain after a jump in property assessments.

A special meeting took place a little after 11 a.m., where commissioners voted to adopt a rollback millage rate. This was done to soften the blow of recent property assessments in Richmond County, which went up on average by 40% in the past two years.

A discussion was also scheduled later Tuesday during committee meetings of the Augusta Commission to potentially take a look back at the recent property assessments from the chief appraiser’s office.

The Georgia Department of Revenue says a “tax rate of one mill represents a tax liability of one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value.”

This is a point system approved by the Augusta Commission and the Richmond County Board of Education.

The commission approved 12.100 mills as the rollback rate, which is a decrease from last year, when commissioners approved 14.063 mills.

The Richmond County Board of Education, while aiming to approve a lower millage rate than last year (17.650), approved a rate of 16.493 mills, which is still 10.67% over the state-recommended rollback rate.

A rollback rate is a recommended amount of mills or “points” to create the same revenue collected by the county from the previous year.

Due to more than 60,000 property assessments in Richmond County going up by about 40% on average, commissioners asked both the city and the Board of Education to take the rollback rate, so the rise in property assessments wouldn’t increase Richmond County taxpayers’ bills dramatically.

The Georgia Department of Revenue also says the average millage rate is about 30 mills, which puts Richmond County below the average at 28.593 mills.

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