DeKalb Announces Proposed Property Tax Increase

Benchmark millage rate stays flat

The DeKalb County Governing Authority today announces its intention to increase 2022 property taxes this year by 7.08 percent over the rollback millage rate.

DeKalb County has six separate tax levies. Two of those levies (the general and hospital funds) are used in the required calculation for the rollback rate. The other tax levies (police, fire, designated, and the special tax district bond fund), when combined with the general and hospital levies, produce the same benchmark millage rate of 20.810 mills from last year. The combined millage rate for the general and hospital funds will exceed the rollback millage rate. However, the method used to calculate the rollback rate does not take into account offsets in those rates or factor in the credit given by the equalized homestead option sales tax beginning in 2018.

When the current total digest of taxable property is prepared, Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 48-5-32.1 requires a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The 2022 budget tentatively adopted by the DeKalb County Governing Authority requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate, therefore, before the DeKalb County Governing Authority may finalize the tentative midyear budget and set a final millage rate, Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 48-5-32.1 requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

All citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held remotely via Zoom link (https://dekalbcountyga.zoom.us/j/7753778046), or by telephone (602-333-0032 or 888-270-9936, conference code: 217687) on Tuesday, June 28, 2022, at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, at 10 a.m.   

Additional information about the 2022 DeKalb County budget is available at www.dekalbcountyga.gov/budget-office/budget-information.