The Coweta County School Board recently voted 4-3 to lower the school tax millage rate to 15.00 from 15.41 against the recommendation of the administration of Superintendent Evan Horton.  The 4.04% increase in the Coweta County tax digest has provided a substantial increase in revenue to offset the personnel cost increases in the 2025 Coweta County School System (CCSS) budget.

Documents presented during the hearing suggested that the difference in funding would be drawn from reserves already budgeted for 2025. This is surprising as the board had insisted that reserves needed to be increased in their unserious counter proposal after vetoing the taxpayers vote to limit property tax growth under the HB 581 initiative.

In his opposition, board member Frank Farmer commented that the average taxpayer would only see about $30 – 40 in annual tax relief and questioned whether such a small benefit was worth it. Board member Beth Barnett, who made the motion to lower the millage rate said that average Coweta tax payers deserved some tax relief.

It is interesting that during his presentation, the Superintendent reminded the school board that while the school board is responsible for the rate of tax, the tax commissioner sets the value of the property taxed. I am guessing he was suggesting if the board followed his proposal of leaving the millage unchanged, they would not be responsible for a school tax increase. I find this insinuation to be unserious at best.

I am sure they teach algebra at Superintendent Horton’s old school East Coweta High School. One of the first things I learned in algebra is that when multiplying two variables, they equally contribute to the result or to say differently, A (School tax millage rate) x B (Property Tax value) = C (School tax). Therefore, anyone involved with this equation is responsible for taxes going up which they are.

Instead, like a teenager trying to argue their way out of a difficult spot, they try to lawyer their way out by arguing “TECHNICALLY” the board didn’t raise taxes because they left the rate unchanged. However, taxes did go up even when the board lowered the millage rate.

Unfortunately, things aren’t much better on the other side of the street in the world of social media. I saw a Facebook post that claimed the Coweta County School Board was raising the millage. I decided to read the comments before responding where others pointed out the fact the millage was in fact going down. 

However, the original poster responded that TECHNICALLY, the “rollback millage rate” would be 14.81 mills. In the poster’s hypothetical world, the budget, including the increased costs would be covered by the rollback millage driven by the increased property value. However, the rollback millage was never a real rate.  Sometimes great is the enemy of good.

The simple math is that our Coweta School taxes are going up, just not as much as the administration would like. However, benefits costs are up, salaries are up on a pay scale basis, and other costs such as retirement are up. The other option is to either cut costs or go further into reserves which I have argued are too high, but cutting reserves is in the right direction. 

Its unfortunate and frustrating that both sides would rather have a stilted conversation that fits the narrative of their viewpoint rather than an open and honest conversation that is not as “technical” and more simple like algebra.