Property owners grilled the Early County Board of Education at Thursday’s public hearing on Georgia House Bill 581, also known as the Save Our Homes Act.
HB 581 limits the amount of tax increases allowed on the assessed value of homestead properties to the rate of inflation. The cap on increased taxes was set to begin Jan. 1 unless local governments or school districts choose to take advantage of a one-time chance to opt-out.
It was the opinion of the Early County School System that opting out would allow the district to maintain control over local tax policy, possibly preventing future tax increases. They say since property values in Early County didn’t rise, most wouldn’t see a lower tax rate.
Opting out means the board can keep collecting tax revenue with no caps in place, according to the school system’s website.
The tense meeting was attended by around 75 property owners and citizens.
The opposition
Over 60% of Georgia voters passed the measure in the last election, and Early County voters passed it by 56%.
“I think the issue right now is that citizens just don’t want to keep pouring money into something they see that is deteriorating,” one person in the meeting claimed. “Please understand that the citizens are suffering… We voted for it, and you guys got voted in by the people who voted for it. Please listen to your constituents.”
Another woman directly asked the board and superintendent a question of allegations that teachers were leaving the school system, but the superintendent directed the conversation back to the house bill itself, saying people could submit other questions and issues through a form provided at the meeting.
The woman later got up and left the meeting, calling it “a waste of time.”
“Taxpayers are just financially exhausted… every time we possibly get tax relief, every time we possibly get a break, somebody else is voting to raise the taxes,” one person said.
The state of Georgia passed a law allowing vouchers to send kids to private school, similar to Alabama’s new CHOOSE Act.
One person in the audience related the issue of underperforming schools to bullying and gang violence.
One board member stood to address the issue, saying that part of the issue holding kids back was federal funds being used to prosecute people in the war on drugs instead of funding schools.
One man in the audience piped up:
“But that goes back — you give the government more money, you get no results, period. Y’all are government, plain and simple. You keep feeding the beast, it’s not going to solve it.”
Officials’ opinion
Officials insisted opting out of the tax cap would be better for everyone in the long run.
They said property owners would only get a reduction on homestead taxes if their homes were appraised over the inflationary rate, so there’s a chance nothing could actually change.
“The value of property in Early County didn’t increase over the inflationary rate, so there would be no effect,” said Jennifer Brown, the ECSS superintendent. “Some people think this is automatically a reduction in their taxes, and it’s not.”
Opting out would have no effect on the current senior tax exemption, Brown noted.
School systems are capped at levying a maximum of 20 mills. For 2024, the school system was at 15.9 mills.
Officials said that if they opted in and saw a loss of revenue for schools, the tax burden could be shifted elsewhere, forcing the school system to increase taxes on other properties, such as farmland, businesses or rental properties.
“You’re going to win-win on your house, but you’re going to lose-lose on your farm,” one person said at the meeting.
The tax cap would require a new property assessment every three years. Selling a home or making significant changes would reset that cap.
While HB 581 said there’s a chance for localities to add a one-cent sales tax, school systems don’t have that ability.
ECSS has seen a lower number of students, but Brown said that wasn’t just a local problem.
“We’ve lost 25 percent of our student population in the past 10 years,” she said. “It’s not an Early County problem, it’s a rural problem.”
Teachers themselves seem to be in favor of the board’s inclination to opt-out, Brown said.
Regarding the rumors of teachers being lost, while some teachers have left or retired, Brown said, “We’re fully staffed right now. All of our classrooms have a teacher.”
Brown attributed low scores to the fact standardized testing doesn’t leave any room for students’ strengths other than in reading and math.
“Just like every school system, we teach by the Georgia standard. We provide a lot of support and interventions,” she said. “If your area of strength is not reading or math, it doesn’t get reflected on the standardized test. We are working to find the area each child is strong in and propel them forward with that strength.”
In 2023, Early County’s graduation rate was 88.41 percent, higher than the Georgia average of 84.4 percent at the time.
Moving forward
The school system said they only have one chance to opt-out, and they can opt-in in the future through local legislation; however, if they opt-in now, it’s currently unclear if they’ll be able to back out.
The board is set to officially vote on whether to opt-in or opt-out at the meeting on Tuesday, January 21 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time at the Early County Administrative and Training Site at 40 Harold Ragan Drive in Blakely. There will be discussion about the measure before the board officially casts their votes. The third and final public hearing begins at 6 p.m. Eastern time.
Brown said she hoped people would understand this isn’t a tax cut, and that it’s a complicated issue.
“The Early County Board of Education as well as myself are all taxpayers ourselves. Our goal is to make the best decisions for what’s in the best interest of the Early County School System,” she said. “We are good stewards of taxpayer money. We don’t anticipate arbitrarily raising taxes, but we do have to operate a school system and educate children.”
Citizens are urged to refer to ECSS’s Fact or Fiction page on their website.
