Dalton City Council members voted 3-0 Tuesday to cut the city’s property tax rate.
Council member Tyree Goodlett was absent and Mayor Annalee Sams typically votes only when there is a tie.
The council members voted to reduce the county’s maintenance and operations property tax rate to 1.841 mills from the current 1.936 mills. That is the rate needed to offset revenue gains from the increase in the tax digest that is being used.
A judge in October granted the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners and the city councils of Dalton and Varnell an emergency order in Superior Court allowing the county and the cities to collect property taxes based on the 2023 tax digest plus a 10% increase in all assessments after questions were raised about the 2024 digest.
The city had advertised a property tax rate of 1.936 mills, unchanged, but because of the tax digest that is being used that would have brought in $318,809 more in revenue, an increase of 3.681%.
The council members said city revenues tend to fluctuate, and they think they can find savings or other revenues to cover that $318,809 and decided to return the money to taxpayers.
During the last 21 years, the city has increased property taxes just twice. The City Council adopted the full rollback rate, which cancels out revenue increases due to reassessments, in 10 of those years and reduced the rate below the rollback rate in nine of those years.
Sams noted that the council members set the tax rate on a temporary digest set by the judge’s emergency order. She said if the final digest differs from the temporary digest the city could have to return money or seek more money from taxpayers based on their final assessments.
She said she hopes the Whitfield County Board of Assessors will meet soon and ratify the temporary digest as the final digest. That board had been without enough members to form a quorum for several weeks. But in the last two meetings of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners they have appointed people to fill the empty seats.