The Decatur County Board of Commissioners recently announced its intention to increase the property taxes it will levy this year by 9.10 percentage over the rollback millage rate.

Each year, the Board of Tax Assessors is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the county. When the trend of prices on properties that have recently sold in the county indicates there has been an increase or decrease in the fair market value of any specific property, the board of tax assessors is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment. This is called a reassessment.

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that 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 budget adopted by the Decatur County Board of Commissioners requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate; therefore, before the Decatur County Board of Commissioners may set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Decatur County Administrative Building, 203 W. Broughton St., on Monday, July 18, at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m.