Press Release Contact: Perry Hicks
For Immediate Release City Manager
770/537-2331
City to Reduce Tax Millage for 2023
The City of Bremen is pleased to announce that they will rollback property tax rates for 2023. Property tax rates for the Haralson County portion of the city will be 4.733, which is nearly ¾ of a mill less than the 2022 rate (5.47). And the rate for the Carroll County portion of the city will be 6.884. This rate is significantly less than last year’s 8.552 rate. The levy of these tax rates will produce revenues in amounts of approximately $1,900,000, which is the amount of needed property tax revenue as stated in the previously adopted and implemented Fiscal Year 2024 (7/1/23-6/30/24) Budget.
Knowing the fact that re-assessment of property values has occurred in both Haralson and Carroll Counties the Mayor and City Council held fast to the principle of taxing property owners only what is needed to operate the organization as had been planned in the budgeting process. Having recognized the need to plan for employees raises, increases in health care costs, utility costs, fuel increases, etc., the elected leadership of the city acted in June of this year to adopt and subsequently implement a budget that would properly serve this community with the quality of public services as has long been demanded.
To provide further insight, if the city had simply chosen to levy last year’s Haralson rate at 5.47 mills the coinciding Carroll rate would have had to be recalculated and would result in a rate of 7.621 mills. The revenues then yielded would have been $2,198,966. The amount of revenue beyond what had been adopted in the budget would have been nearly $300,000 more. The Mayor and Council have viewed this as additional monies to be paid out of family budgets.
City Manager Perry Hicks stated that while the city organization can readily utilize additional revenue he plainly understands and totally supports the Mayor and City Council’s decision to levy the 2023 tax rates. Hicks stated that the Department Heads and City staff had diligently planned for the Fiscal Year and had delivered a budget to the elected officials back in May of this year. He continued in noting that now comes the difficult decision that the Mayor and Council has to perform on an annual basis. That is the actual decision to tax a property owner in order to fund the adopted budget for the year. He said that in conversations with those officials common concerns often center on the financial impacts of property taxes on home owners and the real increases in the costs of living on everyone in the community.
The City of Bremen is scheduled to adopt these published rates at their regular meeting of August 21, 2023. The meeting is at 7:00 p.m. at the Public Safety Complex at 191 Georgia Avenue North.
