The proposed county net Maintenance & Operations rate increased to 4.791 mills. The proposed Fire rate increased to 2.175 mills. The proposed Bond rate will be reduced to 0.970 mills. These rates will fund the county's 2020 general operating budget, which is currently in the preliminary stages of development. Forsyth County continues to have millage rates among the lowest in metro Atlanta.

A growth of 8.37 percent is the total growth over 2018 tax digest, this means the anticipated 2019 total collections will increase. Of the 8.37 percent growth, 4.11 percent is due to new construction in 2018 with the remaining 4.26 percent  from increased values from reassessments.

Change in an individual tax bill will depend upon the change in assessed valuation for that property, and the value of any Homestead Exemption, which may also change with the assessed value.

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year's digest that last year's millage rate would have produced had no reassessments or growth occurred.

The preliminary 2020 budget presented to the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners is based on a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate, therefore before the Board of Commissioners may set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

All concerned citizens are invited and encouraged to attend the public hearings:

• Thursday, July 11 at 11 a.m.
• Thursday, July 11 at 5 p.m.
• Thursday, July 18 at 6 p.m.

All three public hearings will be held at the Forsyth County Administration Building located at 110 E. Main Street, Suite 220, in Cumming. Adoption of the millage rate is slated for July 18 at 6:30 p.m. as part of the Board of Commissioners' regular meeting.