COBB TAX RATE BOARD REDUCES GENERAL FUND MILLAGE RATE

Move will save owner of a $250K home about $66.

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve Chairman Tim Lee’s proposal to roll back the county’s general fund millage rate.

In a meeting Tuesday evening, the board voted to reduce the millage rate of 7.12 down to 6.66 mills.

Lee proposed the cut in the general fund millage rate in weeks prior to the meeting, sending out campaign ads to Cobb voters and encouraging them to call their commissioner to ask them to vote in support of the rate reduction. Lee originally proposed a rate of 6.82 mills. A week later, he proposed the lower 6.66mill rate.

“I firmly believe that when a government collects more than expected, that money should go back to the taxpayers,” Lee said. “We should never be spending more money just because we collected more money.”

As a part of the proposal, the board also voted in support of a 0.1-mill reduction to the county’s fire service and debt service millage rates to 2.96 and .23 mills, respectively. The proposal passed with little debate or discussion from the commissioners.

The total 0.66-mill decrease equals a $66 reduction in the amount of county taxes paid on a home valued at $250,000.

However, not every property tax levied against Cobb residents was decreased. Commissioners unanimously voted in support of keeping Cobb County School’s millage rate at 18.9 mills, a rate that Cobb has maintained since 2007.

Earlier this month, Cobb’s school board voted to maintain the 18.9 millage rate. Had the school board voted to adopt a rollback rate, a Cobb County homeowner could have saved about $132 overall on their property tax bill.