Hart County Approves 2012 Millage

Hart County’s board of commission has adopted and approved two resolutions approving the 2012 millage rate.

At their regular meeting last week, county administrator Jon Caime brought two resolutions before the board after the required public hearing.

In the first, the board voted to approve to adopt the final millage sales tax and insurance premium resolution.

In the second the board voted to adopt the final 2012 millage resolution.

Before the vote, Caime said the temporary 2012 digest adopted last fall turned out to be lower than expected, which changed the final rollback rate for the millage.

“As a result of that, we are slightly off on the rollback rate that we set in November,” Caime told the board. “As required by State law, if we do not set that rollback rate to the required rollback rate, based on the final digest, then we must call it a tax increase. Although there will be no bills issued for 2012. That will wrap up 2012.  So, we will have 2009-2012 behind us.”

Caime said the final tax bills for 2009, 2010, and 2011 are now going out.  One concern Caime said he has however is how the county will pay people back who are due refunds on their previous property tax bills.

Caime said it will all depend on whether all of the revenue owed the county comes in on time.

“For 2009 – 20011, there is approximately $5.9 million in bills going out and about $3.9 million in refunds due back,” Caime said. “Those bills are now being processed by the Tax Commissioner.  There is some concern about generating the revenue to cover that $3.9 million in refunds, but how much we collect has always been the unknown.”

Of the $5.9 million in property tax owed, Hart County’s share is $1.6 in bills and $1.2 million due back in refunds for 2009 – 2011.

The rest is the Hart County School system property tax.

Caime said one issue that has been resolved is with regard to which property owner is responsible for past property tax bills going back to 2009 if a property has been sold since then.

Caime said any past property tax bills that are due are the responsibility of the current property owner.

Tax bills are due by the end of December.