MCSD board announces called meeting to possibly amend millage rate

The Muscogee County School Board announced Thursday it will conduct a called meeting Friday at 5 p.m. to “discuss and possibly amend the 2018 millage rate based on the receipt of the final tax digest, and conduct any other necessary school business.”

No other information about the reason for the called meeting and the urgency was given in the news release. But Muscogee County School District superintendent David Lewis told the Ledger-Enquirer it involves notice from the Columbus Consolidated Government that property tax revenue now is projected to be more than originally estimated when the board approved the fiscal year 2018 budget in June as the board kept its millage rate at 23.37 for the 21st straight year. He said he couldn’t be more specific and referred additional questions to MCSD chief financial officer Theresa Thornton.

Thornton told the Ledger-Enquirer the called meeting is necessary because, due to the increased property valuations in the city, MCSD now expects to receive more local revenue than originally estimated. She wouldn’t say how much, but it is beyond the 3 percent threshold triggering the state law that requires the school board to conduct another round of advertisements and three public hearings before setting the fiscal year’s millage rate. For all those steps to be completed by the Oct. 1 deadline, Thornton said, the school board must meet as soon as possible.

So at Friday’s meeting, Thornton said, the administration will present the board options and ramifications: If the board keeps the millage rate at 23.37 and accepts the extra revenue, such-and-such would happen; if the board rolls back the millage rate; such-and-such would happen.

Board chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1 emailed the other eight representatives this explanation Thursday night:

“The Tax Commissioner desired to have the tentative mill levy presented to City Council on August 29^th with a final vote on Sept 12. However, based on recent conversations with the Department of Revenue we must move that date out to September 13^th to be in compliance in advertising the current tax digest and five-year history of levy.

“Today the digest was received by Ms. Thornton for MCSD, which will be submitted to the state for approval. Given that the actual increase in the tax digest, which is much above the 3% year-over-year growth in tax revenues that we advertised in June, we are required to re-advertise. This includes the required newspaper publications (history of mill levy and press release), three public hearings, and adoption of a final mill levy. Failure to do so would result in the digest being disapproved by the State Revenue Commissioner and billing to not take place.

“We have 14 days to make this happen. Our goal is to have the initial advertisement on this Saturday, August 26^th.

Completion of this process within the required timeline allows the Tax Commissioner to meet the October 1^st billing date.”

In successive votes Monday night, the school board authorized the administration to seek a short-term loan that would plug the expected gap in delayed local revenue as the Columbus Consolidated Government deals with thousands of appeals from property owners upset about their assessments soaring by as much as tenfold, and then the school board passed a resolution requesting CCG to reduce the fee it charges MCSD for collecting property taxes by the dollar amount it will cost MCSD to borrow the money.

The delay is a bigger issue for the school board than Columbus Council because MCSD receives a larger percentage of the Columbus property tax revenue than CCG, approximately a 60-40 split, and 41 percent of MCSD’s fiscal year 2018 revenue is expected to come from local property taxes while the figure is 31 percent for CCG.

This story was originally published August 24, 2017 at 5:57 PM with the headline "MCSD board announces called meeting to possibly amend millage rate."