City Commission - Regular Meeting

Commission. We start every meeting with an invocation and a pledge to the flag, and tonight Commissioner Hickson is volunteered to do that. So, if you will.

Let's pray. Once again, dear Lord, we come before you, dear Heavenly Father, just to give you thanks, dear Lord, for the many blessings that you bestowed upon us thus far, dear Lord. We come asking upon your blessings, dear Father, on this city, dear Lord. We ask tonight, dear Lord, for prayer for our first responders, dear Heavenly Father, for our police officers, dear Lord, and also for our school system, dear Heavenly Father. We just started back to school, dear Lord. We ask that you continue to watch over our administration, dear Lord, our teachers, dear Father, our custodians, our librarians, our lunchroom people, dear Lord, and also our students, dear Heavenly Father. We ask, dear Heavenly Father, that you just could continue to watch over this commission, dear Lord, and that we may continue to do your work, dear Lord. Set our personal goals aside, dear Heavenly Father, and do the work of the community, dear Heavenly Father. We thank you, dear Lord, and we also, as we pray, we thank you for the resources that you put in this city, dear Heavenly Father. We realize, dear Lord, that many cities don't have three rivers and seven hills, dear Father. So we just thank you, dear Lord, for the work that you've done on this commission and that you will continue to do, dear Lord. We also ask for prayers for our citizens, dear Lord, those who may be struggling and those who just may be trying to find their way, dear Father. We just thank you, dear Lord, and these are the prayers that we do ask and give. In your son Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Mr. Clark, will you please call the roll? Yes, sir. Mayor Bojo? Here. Commissioner Robinson? Here. Brock? Here. Cochran?

Here.

Beeman? Here. Fisher?

Here.

Dixon? Here. Collins? Here. McDaniel? Here.

We are here for this call meeting to discuss, this is public hearing, to discuss our 2026 millage rate, And this is the first of three meetings that are scheduled. And I'm going to turn it over now to our city manager, Sammy Rich.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Great to see everybody in our audience. Thank you guys for being here tonight and those that may be joining us out there via our live stream. And so it is upon us that we find ourselves in millage rate season. And so got a couple of slides are gonna go over tonight. You all commission should find at your place a few handouts so you can follow along. But just to give some context, so for the public to understand what we're doing. So the digest, once the tax commission does their job and sends over the preliminary digest, it is then our duty to figure out how much millage will the city need to levy so that we're able to generate enough revenue to provide city services. So when we received the numbers this year for Digest, and we'll talk about those in a little bit of detail, of the city's 15,404 real property parcels, 5,949 of those, or 38.6%, had a decrease in value between 2025 and 2026. Of particular interest, which I know you guys would be interested to hear, of the city's 5,142 homestead parcels, 3,959, or 77%, experienced a decrease in their assessed value. So if I am a taxpayer in my home and I hear that and I'm part of that 77%, I would think I'm going to be excited to hear that. And so I know there's probably a lot of folks that are indeed thinking that. And so as we look and as you will look before you tonight, just to kind of give you the overview, here's what is before us tonight. Here's what is going to the finance committee and is being recommended to the full commission. that we adjust the city M&O, as you will see, 7.75 mils and 25, that we will increase that to 8.25. For city capital, 1.75 mils, and we increase to 2 mils. Rome City Schools, from 16.75 mils, a decrease of 16 mils. So when you add that up, what we're talking about is the same overall millage rate. 26.25 mils for 25 and 26. When we're talking about the digest value, we had about a 1.4% growth, and Rome City Schools had about a 1.5% growth, just to give you the statistics. If you'll bear with me, I'm going to scroll down, and I want you guys, hopefully you can all see the screens and or you have the handout in front of you. And so what does that look like? What do those numbers look like? And so the top of the page, you'll see city M&O, 8.25. And then if you look at that number in red, the 1 billion, 1.8 billion. And then you'll see multiply sign, 94%. And so if you compare the 25 actual versus 26, what that top line shows you is if we set the millage for M&O at 8.25, and we have a 94% collection rate, that will generate the $14,288,466. So that's how the sheet reads. And so if you will continue down the sheet with me, you will see capital tax. If that is at two, it will generate $3,502,373. and so forth. We get down to Rome City Schools, Rome City, we decrease down to a flat 16 and you see the numbers from 30.2 to 28,978.39. There are additional revenues as you will see, transfer, real estate transfer, motor vehicle, intangible payment in lieu of taxes, and then a prior year tax. And so if you hear 94% collection, it's like, wait a minute, you mean some people don't pay? Well, there are some folks that don't pay, but then there's taxes that get accounted for in future years. And so hence the prior year tax. So it does ultimately get accounted for. So if you can see the bottom square on the right, again, comparing 25 to 26, the millage rate before us. Now, this is a really special slide here, If you guys have this in front of you, it's an eye chart. If it looks familiar, if you've been to an optometrist. And I give you this as a way to say this goes back to 1995. And so this is extremely hard to look at. And I do have a graph I would like to show you. Bear with me. Maybe this is a little easier to see. And so I just want to hit a couple of points on this. If you look at our city millage, and again, the millage is the portion of the tax equation that the Rome City Commission has control of. You guys know this. The Rome City has no bearing on how much properties are assessed for. You have the job of setting the millage rate. So when we look back, and to the left would be 1995, and obviously to the far right, 2026. what's fascinating is if as you look over this 30 plus years we've really only had a variation in millage from 1.6 of 1.63 mills it's it's a to me it's pretty astounding and i tell folks often when i talk about the city and the stability of the city this slide really tells the story we're not a city that's had a crazy amount of tax increases It's a pretty boring chart if you honestly look at the range of 1.63 mils over a 30-year period. And I've got a little slide here just at the bottom just to show you a comparison. And again, same chart with the years broken out, 95 to the left. And when you look at the top rate, that's all combined, cities, M&O, city capital, and Rome City Schools. And then you see schools broken out in green, city broken out and I guess a reddish orangish color and so as as we all know the city school piece is the largest piece of our city taxes and so when we look at paying city taxes it takes a lot to provide services and so when we talk about what we do and for our audience we are a service organization when 85 to 90 percent of what it takes to operate a city is simply people. And so when we talk about getting leaner, you're talking about, well, what areas of operation do we wanna get rid of or what areas do we wanna scale back? I would submit that we try to do the best we can do to be an efficient local government. And when we look at the effect that we have of keeping the millage the same, unless you've had a change in your assessed value, you're not going to see a tax increase. Now, there is one other variable that we have no control over, and that is referred to as the HRTG, the homeowners relief tax grant that comes to us from the state of Georgia. If you are a homestead, if you're filed under homestead exemption already, you don't have to do anything. In this case, that deduction will take place and that will be an additional up to $18,000 off of the taxable value of your property. And so on average, it's about a $500 savings. And so when we look at some of these, if we took a real example, and I've got a couple examples in front of me, if you had a house that the fair market value was $107,742, And you take the taxable value, the 40% of that, you apply the millage rates that we've talked about tonight, you're going to have a difference of about $19.46. So you're going to have savings based on the millage rates that we're proposing. However, when you apply the HRTG grant, you have an even margin. bigger savings. And so that homeowner is going to end up with a net bill of $340.38. And so that's something not in our control. We've not had that since 2023. And I just bring that up because it is going to play a role in the tax bills that the actual property owners see this year. And with that, Mr. Mayor, I will just conclude my comments that Anytime we are setting a millage rate as required by the state of Georgia, if we are not going back to the rollback rate, then we must declare it a tax increase, even if the millage rate is exactly the same, or even if the millage rate were a decrease, if it doesn't decrease to the rollback rate, we still have to call it a tax increase and hold three public hearings. And so that's what brings us here tonight for hearing number one. And with that, happy to try to answer any questions, or we may want to enter into public comment first.

All right, do we have any questions? I have some. Just out of curiosity, what's driving the capital increase?

I'm sorry, could you be more?

The capital tax increase?

Why, are we asking for additional?

Yes.

Okay. Good question. And so capital just isn't home. Same with us. Everything is more expensive. And that's, you know, one seeing our our fire friends here. Fire trucks are more expensive. Police cars are more expensive. And so simply that when we're trying to buy equipment, we've struggled with our lease purchase program because our typical lease purchase has faded out of existence. So we're waiting on the state to bring back a new opportunity for us. And so just trying to prepare for how are we going to be able to meet the needs of city capital. And so that's, in a nutshell, that's what we're trying to do.

Okay. So we have two more of these meetings, correct?

Correct.

Okay. So I would just ask that if the city is asking for $564,000 more, which is a 20% increase over last year, that we get a little bit more detailed and things are more expensive because... I understand things are more expensive, but I seriously doubt they're 20% more expensive. I also understand that inside of there, it was a little bit hard to tell from the 2026 budget if the golf course payments are starting or not for the irrigation.

Right, the lease purchase.

Yes, and so I would just like more detail on that in particular. In addition, I went back and read the finance minutes, and it appears as though part of the, request for the increase in the city M&O was health care?

Correct.

But that's under budget year to date in June?

So knock on wood we have seen substantial health care increase in the last say 10-15 years. I hate to this is one of those I don't want to jinx us but yeah we are completely at the mercy of as luck has it. And so our employees are paying more for healthcare and our city government is paying more for healthcare. And so some years you have a lot of bad claims. Some years you get lucky. We've been on a three, four year, extremely rough patch to where it's completely out of our control. And I didn't say that earlier, but insurance is one of those great examples because again, We try to do everything we can to encourage employee wellness. Y'all know we participate, we provide an employee clinic, and sometimes you just have bad luck and you have an increase in claims. And so y'all know we've done a lot of things, including strong side solutions, which is a way to try to get our health spending in order. And so while we're tracking okay this year, there's no guarantees. Just like I can't control the cost of a fire truck or a police car, I can't guarantee what our health care expenses are going to be depending on what our claim results are.

I understand that and appreciate you all doing such a great job being efficient with that money. On the other hand, we're asking the citizens to give us more tax money as a hedge on something that hasn't happened yet. And so if we're under budget year to date as of June, I find it, difficult to ask citizens to pony up more money as a hedge against what's going to happen in the next six months if we are under budget as of June 30th. Sure. And so, and I can't remember, there was one more item in the minutes that was a reason for the additional M&O increase. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but we get around back to it the next two meetings. But if we could just have more detail in terms of the capital tax.

Oh, sure.

In particular, that would be fantastic.

We're happy to talk capital and look at expenditures. Anytime we're talking capital, we're talking projects and vehicles and equipment. And so again, I didn't start out by saying this, but as we're paying more in our lives at home, city government, we also have to pay more for the services. And so that's part of the net impact. But I'm sure we will have Tony back with us on Monday and a chance we can probably get some more capital project details, for example. Thank you. Sir?

Sammy, if I could ask a question. I think you said, is it 74% of the properties, of the residential properties, saw a decrease? 77%.

77%. 77%, so 3,959 of their assessed value. Do you know what that number is for the county? I do not. If I've heard it, I didn't retain it. I just have not heard that.

I see a real estate. I think a lot of the increase that we saw was COVID related with material costs going up. We had a housing shortage and material costs were really high. And we had a, if you built something, it cost a lot more to build it. And the comps were inflated for a long period of time. We've got about 400 houses, single family homes on the market right now. In MLS, that doesn't include Smith Douglas and all of the out-of-town builders. All in total, we'll probably have 750, maybe 800 homes on the market. So we've got a surplus right now, and prices are coming down, I think. But I was amazed to hear that number for the city. Mine went down. My personal residence went down. And I've talked to other people. I had people call me in complaining about their property taxes. And I said, well, look at it and compare it to last year. And they said, well, wait a minute, it did go down. And some of them, it was a very small amount. Some were fairly substantial. So I think we're seeing this settling down. And as a taxpayer, we've I think property taxes are the most unfair way to fund government. I think we've got to do something, but nobody wants... We tried the FLOST, and that didn't work, and I don't know the right way to do it. I would go for a one-penny sales tax, personally, but people, they just don't want to do that. But I think that number... that 77% is a good indication. Just me personally, I think that's a step in the right direction that we're seeing a reduction. I would agree with you.

Anyone else?

Sammy, two years ago, or maybe three years ago, assessment was just the opposite. I'm trying to figure out what happened over there that

77 showed up this year and along those lines if it had not what kind of money are we talking about if it had probably just stayed the same as it was and that's a great great question because you know when we look back at you know what what kind of growth we've seen you know we've had four five percent and so If you were to ask us, you know, earlier in the year what we would have projected, you know, we were thinking maybe 4% or 5% growth. And so the reality is, you know, 1.4%. And so when I think, you know, there's a number of things. One, I think Commissioner McDaniel brings up some good points about how you're seeing sort of the pendulum swing market doing. How are, you know, are people, is it a seller's market or is it a buyer's market? And I understand that has changed pretty drastically in the last few years. So I feel like this is probably a market correction, but at the end of the day for us, when it is what provides a valuable part of the revenue for us to be able to provide and deliver the city services. So that's part of the equation, but who knows? And so that's the piece that we certainly, We don't have any say in. We just simply control the millage rate. And then as you guys know, the state's pretty specific as to what, you know, when they come in and audit, looking at the assessments. And so there's got to be within a range. And that range looks very good this year. They've continued to do a good job.

I asked that question along the lines of what Cochran is kind of saying, asking the voters for that. But if Those guys sitting over there making those decisions, I know it's related to all these others that we got coming, and they're still billing.

That's right.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Thank you, Mayor. I'll now open up public meeting for anyone that wants to speak. How many people in here would like to speak?

Dave Frode. I hope I don't forget the three things that I was up here. Bill, as far as the actual penalty for the state, you've actually got three years to write it. And I think it's very little. I can't remember, but it's a few dollars per parcel. In the county, the same penalty would be like $200,000. and then you still have three years to make that right. So if you make it right in the third year, as far as the property values or appraisals, you're good, there's no penalty. So the second thing I wanted to talk about is, and nowhere, Sammy, the board, anywhere, nowhere has, except for services that you mentioned, cutting. Is there not anything else in this whole city government that we could cut? You know, I just, I don't understand. I mean, you know, it's never, nobody ever says anything about cutting anything. It's always charging the taxpayer more. Just charge the taxpayer more to get our budget. I don't understand it. All right, going back, your representation is, for homestead exempted properties were i don't remember the percentage can you enlighten me on the homestead uh you mentioned the homesteaded properties a percentage 77 had a decrease in valuation but of that uh is that 73 percent of the the city that are homestead exemption exemptives 77 percent of parcels that

or under homestead exemption, had a decrease.

Okay. In the city.

Correct. In the city.

The failed representation there, or there are a lot of elderly people. I talked to one today that called me for some things that were going wrong through a real estate company that was managing her property. Those people that are, those elderly that are leasing, it's not going to help them at all. Homestead exemption doesn't help them at all So as landlords, you have to pass this tax increase over to those elderly people that are living social security check, but to social security check pretty much. So that really concerns me. And then the other thing is, why can't we, I know there's other than services we can cut. Why can't we look deeper and cut instead of charging the taxpayer more? Thank you. I did remember the three.

All right, if there's no one else. Sure.

state your name your address uh mark wall 38 devonshire drive you know what um you've got three minutes okay i don't need that one okay but you know uh you look at what y'all are doing over here and there's not much of a millage increase and that's much better than you know i pay a lot of taxes here but i play a lot in polk county and they're going up 18.48 you know although when it's advertised in the paper I think last year it went up 6.68%, and this year it went up 10% over last year, and that's much more than inflation. But it's much better here than it is in Polk County. So I'll give you that.

All right, thank you. I've got, is there anything else from up here? All right, I've got two announcements I'd like to make before we adjourn. First of all, we were on Thursday morning at 9 o'clock, In the Sam King room, we will have an update on the RO plant. The players to be with the design, the engineering, and so forth will be here. And as always, everyone's welcome to come, and I encourage you to come. And that's this coming Thursday morning at 9 o'clock.

OK.

I'm closing the public hearing. So now I'll just tell you that the water and sewer meeting is Thursday morning at 9 o'clock down in the Sam King room. And also we will have our second call meeting to discuss the 2026 tax millage rate. That will happen next Monday morning. That is on August the 10th. It will be right here in these chambers at 10 o'clock. With all that being said,