The Editor asked me recently if we were finished reporting on HB 581. I surprised her when I said no. While many systems have “opted out” of the Constitutional Amendment limiting property value growth some of these same bodies offered an alternative for the public to vote on after the body ignored the public’s vote on HB 581.

The Coweta County School Board is one such body. The board voted to ask the Coweta state legislative delegation to pass a bill that would allow voters to consider a watered-down tax relief proposal in exchange for the board’s unlimited ability to raise school taxes in the future.

After the Coweta County School Board made their request to the legislators without public input, the next part of democracy happened. Citizens and groups of citizens began offering the legislators their own opinions and proposals. One from a group calling themselves “We the People of Coweta County” is attached, as well as my own thought.

The board made a complex proposal. First, they seek to limit property taxable growth to five percent, the citizen group as well as myself, proposed three in line with the measure already voted in by Fayette taxpayers. The board proposal also limits decreases to five percent, neither of the other proposals do.

In the board’s proposal the state millage rate cap of twenty mils is removed, with no alternate cap proposed. Both citizen proposals do not make any provision for millage cap adjustment. Coweta Schools are currently at 15.41 mils and nowhere near the max with foreseeably significant growth in the tax base.

The board’s proposal requests authority to raise the reserve limit to twenty percent from the current fifteen. I have already commented that state officials state that ten percent is considered a good reserve. This is where the citizen group and I diverge. Their proposal allows the reserves to grow to seventeen percent. Having the reserves the board has are adequate for an entity that has collections in the high ninety percent on property taxes.

In fairness, one school board member did offer that the reserves are necessary in case Georgia reverts to “austerity adjustments” to school funding like they did last decade, costing Coweta schools over one hundred million dollars over ten years (Fayette was shorted another over one hundred million dollars). However, there is an irony asking the legislature to help raise local reserves in case the legislature short funds schools they are constitutionally obligated to fund.

Last, the school board has made small adjustments to Coweta’s senior property tax adjustments for schools. The cynical side of me says that the small adjustments were made to get the votes needed for the board’s overly broad request. The taxpayer group’s alternative is more in line with Fayette’s absent any consideration of income. As someone turning the corner to sixty, I can agree with the taxpayer group’s proposal, but my proposal, had no senior tax adjustment.

As of today, no action has been taken by the Coweta delegation in any direction. Therefore, all Coweta citizens still have a chance to “Have their say” as the former editor, Cal Beverly had famously encouraged readers of The Citizen. The contact information for the Coweta delegation to the Georgia legislature is attached.

Some will argue that any tax relief, even as part of a “bad deal” for the taxpayers, is better than no tax relief. I Disagree, instead, I hope our legislators heed the words of so many engaged citizens and allow us the ability to vote on meaningful tax relief like that already voted for by over fifty thousand Coweta voters.

[pdfjs-viewer url=”https://thecitizen.com/wpimport/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/WTP-Resolution.pdf” attachment_id=”120593″ viewer_width=100% viewer_height=800px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

[pdfjs-viewer url=”https://thecitizen.com/wpimport/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Tax-Proposal-Comp.pdf” attachment_id=”120594″ viewer_width=100% viewer_height=800px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

[pdfjs-viewer url=”https://thecitizen.com/wpimport/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Coweta-Proposal.pdf” attachment_id=”120595″ viewer_width=100% viewer_height=800px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

[pdfjs-viewer url=”https://thecitizen.com/wpimport/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Coweta-Delegation-Email-1.pdf” attachment_id=”120625″ viewer_width=100% viewer_height=800px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]