A divided Savannah City Council voted Thursday to keep the current millage rate of 12.739 mills. Maintaining the rate means property owners who see an increase in their assessed value — and whose homes are not eligible for the Stephens-Day exemption — will pay more in 2021.
State law requires the city to advertise the 2021 millage rate as a tax increase because the city's property tax digest has grown by 2.73% and the 12.739 mills will produce more total revenue. The council also considered a rollback rate of 12.401 mills, which would reduce most tax bills yet bring in the same amount of revenue as the prior year.
City attorney Bates Lovett told council that the use of the word "increase" when the rate isn't actually changing leads to confusion.
“This is not lawyers being lawyers, this is state politicians being state politicians. They have very intentionally chosen the words that we are required to use to try to mislead the public about what is going on,” Lovett said.
“We are required to use the word 'increase' when in fact we're not increasing the percentage of tax that we are charging citizens.”
Council approved the millage rate by a 6-3 vote, with alderwomen Kesha Gibson-Carter, Alicia Blakely and Bernetta Lanier opposing the measure. The vote came following two public hearings on Thursday during which several members of the public spoke against maintaining the rate.
“After a devastating year for most businesses and certainly citizens, we are just asking everybody to tighten their belt. And it just appears that the city continues to spin, and now are turning to the citizens of Savannah to ante up again, and the property taxes are rising again,” resident Jennifer Henderson said during the 11 a.m. hearing.
During the afternoon hearing, downtown resident Gary Plotycia said his property assessment had increased about 30%.
“We all know across the country property values are going up tremendously. And therefore the revenue generated from property tax, even with the rollback, could be significantly higher than was previously,” he said.
Keith Padgett, who spoke during both the morning and afternoon hearing, urged the city to look to other sources of funding to make up for any shortfalls.
“If there's any way that we can find funds and other places to take care of the needs that we have, let's do that, but doing what you guys want to do, I don’t want to do that. We want to go with the rollback,” he said.
Alderman Nick Palumbo made the motion to maintain the rate, which was countered by a motion to rollback the rate made by Gibson-Carter. Gibson-Carter's motion failed 6-3.
Last month during a budget workshop Blakey said she felt it was important for residents to understand that the use of the word "increase" was nothing more than a formality required by the state. On Thursday she said she had researched the issue further and advocated for the rollback instead.
“I just want the public to know that the most vulnerable will be affected by this, renters will be affected by this. We could find money someplace else. We bond out everything for everybody and we need to do something for our citizens,” she said following the vote.
Katie Nussbaum is the city and county government reporter for the Savannah Morning News. Contact her at knussbaum@savannahnow.com. Twitter: KmartSMN
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Divided Savannah council votes to maintain millage rate
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