After hearing from residents during three public hearings, the Flemington City Council voted Tuesday to roll back its first-ever millage rate from a proposed 3.514 mils to zero mils. By doing so, the city would be eligible to seek a sales tax that residents and non-residents would pay to help offset any property millage rate that might come up in the future.
Why bother to pass a zero-mil property tax rate in the first place? Councilmember Leigh Smiley said doing so would allow the city to opt into Georgia House Bill 581, which allows for a one-cent floating local option sales tax (FLOST) specifically for the purpose of property tax relief.
In order to collect the one-cent sales tax, which is tied to the rate of inflation, a municipality or county has to have a property tax in place. The idea behind the sales tax is to shift the tax burden off property owners and partly onto non-residents who shop locally.
During the public hearings, homeowners had expressed concerns about paying property taxes and questioned city leaders about plans to develop property across from City Hall as a new downtown district. The tax rate was not directly tied to the land development issue, although council members said they wanted to invest in a planning document for the area that would not be acted upon for years.
Flemington has been able to provide city services through a deal with the city of Hinesville to front the money for its new Quint fire truck, a specialized vehicle with a tall ladder and water-pumping capabilities, in exchange for five years of continued fire service.
The city also contracts with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department, which provides city police services.
During the first hearing, according to City Clerk Jenelle Gordon, officials misspoke about the amount Flemington had paid Hinesville, which was $800,000 and not $500,000. She shared a screenshot of the check from Flemington’s accounting software:
Mayor Pro Tem David Edwards said the city has worked on the tax rate in recent months. “There’s a lot of behind the scenes that a lot of people don’t realize, especially our citizens, over the last years,” Edwards said. “There’s a lot of effort going into this without just going forward and saying, ‘We want to have a new millage rate’.”
He added, “I think we got a lot of good input from the citizens, and, you know, looking into our future, I think we’ve got a good plan to take care of the City of Flemington, to expand, and we’ll do everything we can to help the future citizens of Flemington and future council that’s going to be sitting here in our spot.”
Councilmember René Harwell made a motion for a vote on no property taxes for the next year, but signalled the potential for the following one. Smiley seconded the motion, which passed unanimously; Councilmember Gail Evans was not present.
Mayor Paul Hawkins praised the council for its work on the proposed millage rate, although “of course, I’m negative on some of it; that’s my privilege.” He noted there had been good attendance at the first hearing, not quite as much at the second hearing, adding, “The third one was, mmmh. But anyway, I think the public knows what’s going on by now. We’ve advertised it, it’s on our website, it’s in the papers.”
Edwards said, “Flemington’s growing, as discussed in the recent days and weeks and months that Flemington is growing, and you know, we look forward to working with the citizens about which direction we want to go and how we want to expand this fine city of ours.”
Hawkins said he hoped local sales tax revenues were strong enough “to help set the millage rate at the point where it won’t be bad on the citizens. That’s my point of view.”
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