Final hearing on millage rollback scheduled for Tuesday

Columbia County residents will get their final chance to attend a Board of Commissioner's millage rollback hearing Tuesday.

The commission already has held two public hearings on the matter and will vote on the final millage rate for the coming year after the 2 p.m. rollback hearing at its 2:30 p.m. full board meeting. The rollback hearing and full board meeting will occur at the Evans Government Center auditorium.

Those who attend the third rollback meeting will hear how the county's millage rate of 9.38 for unincorporated areas will stay the same this year. That said, some homeowners might still see higher property tax bills because of recent reassessments of property.

The rollback public hearings are required by the state because the millage rate isn't being rolled back to offset the added amount of taxes as a result of those reassessments.

County Commission Chair-man Ron Cross said he's glad to see that the millage rate won't increase this year. And with recent news of record sales tax figures for the county lately, he said things could only be getting better for the county in future years.

"You could have a partial rollback hopefully as early as next year and maybe a total rollback after that if we can keep this commercial part contributing to the situation,'' Cross said about how growing sales tax collections from new developments such as Mullins Crossing are helping the county's coffers.

Cross said the county would need to come up with about $1.9 million to have a rollback of the millage rate this year. The millage rate was last changed in 2004 when it went from 7.70 to 9.38 in the unincorporated areas, according to county documents.