City Conducts First Two 2024 Millage Rate Hearings

Final Hearing and Vote Scheduled for Monday, September 16 @ 6 PM.

Sep 16, 2024

The City conducted the first two hearings for the 2024 millage rate on Monday, September 9. The final public hearing and vote will take place on Monday, September 16, at a Special Called Meeting at 6 PM in the Council Chambers at City Hall.

The City of Sugar Hill announced on the NIGHT of Friday, August 30 (yes, the Friday just prior to the Labor Day holiday weekend) that the City Manager is proposing a millage rate of 3.69 mills for 2024. Given the change in property values this year and some growth to the tax base, the City estimates this millage rate will result in a 5.01% increase in tax revenue ($310,116) for 2024.

The State of Georgia requires local governments to advertise the millage rate as a tax increase if they’re proposing anything higher than the calculated rollback rate, which is 3.534 mills this year. They’re also required to hold three public hearings prior to officially adopting a rate higher than the rollback rate.

State Law mandates that local governments provide notice to the public of their required public hearings and even specifies the language that has to be used. They are required to provide a five-year history of their tax levy in which they specify both the percentage change in tax revenue and the dollar amount of the change. They’re required to place the notice in the newspaper and on their website, if they have one. The statutes further specify that it has to be in a “prominent” location on the website.

Public Notice Problems

Initially, the City posted a sloppy press release on its website late afternoon-early evening on August 30 - the Friday right before Labor Day Weekend - indicating that it would be posting ads in the Gwinnett Daily Post on Sunday, September 1 for its 2024 millage rate and the public hearing schedule. The press release originally did not actually even indicate the proposed millage rate. It was also missing the legally required language for the official millage rate notice, the rollback rate, and the five-year history of tax levy.

Real Deal Sugar Hill contacted the City at 5:54 PM, indicating the failure of the press release to provide the necessary information. Sometime between that time and about 10:30 PM, the City finally published a correct millage rate notice on the website. Had they not received that notification, they probably would have just allowed the press release to stand in lieu of the required notice, at least until the Tuesday after Labor Day.

The millage rate notice appeared at the very bottom of the home page of the website, in the “City News and Notices” stack. Sometime during the afternoon of September 9, between the first and second millage rate hearings, the City added a bunch of new notices that pushed the millage rate notice down and out of the stack. They actually pushed it off the website entirely, as it was missing from both the City News page and the City Notices page. All that was showing on City News was the City’s inadequate press release

I contacted them regarding this issue. They removed some other notices and the millage rate notice reappeared in the news stack, although they insisted on keeping the press release on the City News page.

Misleading Information

Despite all of the information their press release was missing, they did manage to include a talking point they started using last year about “the largest city property tax cut in decades” when they lowered the millage rate from 3.80 to 3.69 mills. The truth is, they didn’t change the millage rate at all for nineteen years before that and they’ve bragged on themselves since at least 2019 for leaving the millage rate the same. It doesn’t take much to surpass such a low bar, and they didn’t actually do much.

For a house worth $450,000 last year with the 2023 general exemption of $2000, the tax would have been $676.40 at 3.8 mills and $656.82 at 3.69 mills, for a total reduction of $19.58.

They were also eager to point out the increase in the Homestead Exemptions, saying, “the city’s homestead exemption was increased from $2,000 to $10,000, and senior exemptions were increased from $4,000 to $20,000.”

The part about the general homestead exemption was clear and accurate. The part about the senior exemptions is extremely misleading.

The City of Sugar Hill has three different homestead exemptions. This will be the first year taxpayers can use the new Homestead Exemption values that were approved by voters last November.

A general exemption of $10,000 for a residential property in Sugar Hill that you own and use as your primary residence.
A senior exemption of $10,000 for a residential property in Sugar Hill owned and used as a primary residence by someone 65 or older.
A low-income senior/disability exemption of $10,000 for residential property in Sugar Hill owned by anyone 62+ OR disabled with a household income of less than $10,000 annually, as shown on Line 15c after deductions, of the most recent Georgia Income Tax Return.

First Public Hearing

The first public hearing was conducted bright and early at 9 AM on Monday morning.

State Law (GA Code § 48-5-32.1(c)(2) requires at least one of the hearings to take place between 6 PM and 7 PM. Holding a hearing on a Monday morning, arguably the busiest day and time of the work week, appears to be the City’s idea.

The entire meeting only took about eleven minutes. There was no slide show, just a speech by City Manager Paul Radford that contained much of the same verbiage he’s used in many past financial speeches about weathering the “Great Recession,” “Global Pandemic,” and weather disasters that have confronted Sugar Hill.

He claimed that Sugar Hill is 75% residential and 25% commercial, which is not true. Real Deal Sugar Hill obtained a spreadsheet of every parcel in the City of Sugar Hill from the Gwinnett County Tax Assessors’ Office. Sugar Hill now has 9,161 parcels, of which 7796 (85%) are classified as either “Residential SFR” or “Townhome.” The remaining 15% of the parcels consist of all of the other various land uses, including commercial, industrial, and government-owned properties

The only reason he gave for the City’s purported need for extra revenue at this hearing was the increase in the Consumer Price Index, which he said was between 3.1 and 3.9 percent. According to a September 11 press release from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index actually rose 2.5 percent from August 2023 to August 2024.

Council Member Gary Pirkle pointed out that the City has increased its tax revenue every year for the past five years, and that the past two years were very large increases (28.16% in 2022 and 12.27% last year). He said he would like to see the millage rate reduced, but did not specify an alternate millage rate to the one proposed.

Council Member Joshua Page asked how many employees the City has and how much of a raise the City Manager wants to give them. Radford said he was looking at somewhere between 3-4%, and that Suwanee is giving their employees a 4% raise.

Only two residents were present, including Real Deal Sugar Hill.

Resident Mary Howell spoke, saying she agreed with Pirkle. She said that as a disabled senior, she can’t take another job to pay extra taxes. She said that she voted based on this issue in the last election. Howell continued that people are using the City services without paying for them, citing the tax break the City gave the Solis Sugar Hill apartments through a bond-lease agreement.

Second Public Hearing

The second hearing was presented as an agenda item for the September City Council Meeting on Monday, September 9. It was near the end of the agenda and was presented more than two hours into the meeting, as though it were nothing but an afterthought for the City.

The entire hearing took about 20 minutes. Again, there was no slide show, just his same stock speech.

Radford again cited the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a reason for his proposed millage rate and its associated increase in tax revenue. He seems to believe the CPI only affects governments and government employees, for whom he currently plans to request a 3-4% cost of living increase.

At this hearing, he defended the proposed increase in tax revenue by saying that the City’s taxes are much lower than the County and School taxes.

City Council Members spoke immediately after Radford’s “presentation.”

Council Member Gary Pirkle said that according to the five-year history of the City’s tax levy, its tax revenue increased 63.99%, including an increase of 28% in 2022 and 12 percent in 2023. He continued that although the City’s taxes are lower, it should do anything it can to alleviate the burden on taxpayers.

Note: Pirkle’s estimate of the percentage increase in tax revenue over the past five years was actually low because he simply added up the percentages themselves. However, each year’s increase builds on the previous year’s increase. The City’s tax revenue actually increased 80.43% in the past five years.

Council Member Joshua Page focused exclusively on the cost of living increases for staff. He said that the 3-4% increase for staff hadn’t been officially approved yet. Still, whether the Council votes to approve the proposed rate or a lower rate, he supports staff raises to foster employee retention and keep the City competitive with Suwanee and Buford.

Council Member Meg Avery agreed with Page, but said there are still ways to lower the millage rate. Avery said that she recently reviewed the August revenue and expense report for the City and looked at what was budgeted versus what had been spent. Some departments have a lot of money left, so the budget could be trimmed. She also pointed out that setting the millage rate frames the upcoming budget discussion.

Council Member Taylor Anderson asked Radford what percentage of the growth in the tax digest over the last five years was from new construction versus reassessment of existing properties. Radford didn’t know the answer and asked Finance Director Cindy Pugh to answer. Pugh stated that from 2019-2023, over 62% of the growth in the tax digest was due to reassessments of existing property and 38% was due to new construction.

Two residents, Andrew Schulz and James January, spoke during public comments. Both asked the City Council to lower the millage rate, pointing out that lots of people in the community are struggling right now due to the increased cost of living for everyone. Both suggested trimming the budget by asking what the community needs as opposed to things that are simply wanted.

Sugar Hill Property Values

Real Deal Sugar Hill obtained a spreadsheet of every parcel in the City of Sugar Hill from the Gwinnett County Tax Assessors’ Office.

There are 9,161 parcels in the City of Sugar Hill. The steep rise in property values seen in recent years started leveling off this year. Even so, 42% of all the properties in Sugar Hill increased in value.

Single-family houses are still the largest percentage of properties in Sugar Hill at about 74.90%, down from 75.88% last year. Townhouses are the second largest percentage of properties in Sugar Hill now, at 10.2%, up from 9.9% last year.

About 41% of the single-family homes increased in value this year by an average of 11.3%. About 65% of the townhouses increased in value, by an average of 10.4%.

And, that’s on top of the massive property value increases in 2023, in which 77% of single-family homes increased in value by an average of 20%, and 64% of townhomes increased by an average of 18%.

Bottom Line

The 2023 election-year ploy of lowering the millage rate slightly was not the massive tax cut the City wanted the public to think it was. If your property value didn’t increase, you received a small discount.

However, most people’s properties DID increase last year. And, given the large increases in property values experienced by most single-family homeowners and townhome owners, the millage rate reduction wasn’t a real reduction in taxes, it was just a smaller increase in taxes. If you owned a single-family home and experienced the average property value increase of 20%, your taxes actually increased as shown in the table below.

If you owned a townhouse and experienced the average property value increase of 18%, your taxes increased, as shown in this table.

Likewise, the City’s talking points about the increased Homestead Exemptions are also misleading. A Homestead Exemption is applied to your home's taxable value before the tax calculation, not to the final tax bill. As such, it doesn’t lower your taxes by as much as you might think.

The City of Sugar Hill has three different homestead exemptions. This will be the first year taxpayers can use the new Homestead Exemption values that were approved by voters last November.

A general exemption of $10,000 for a residential property in Sugar Hill that you own and use as your primary residence.
A senior exemption of $10,000 for a residential property in Sugar Hill owned and used as a primary residence by someone 65 or older.
A low-income senior/disability exemption of $10,000 for residential property in Sugar Hill owned by anyone 62+ OR disabled with a household income of less than $10,000 annually, as shown on Line 15c after deductions, of the most recent Georgia Income Tax Return.

You can stack the Homestead Exemptions offered by the City. Each Homestead Exemption for which a homeowner qualifies reduces the final City of Sugar Hill tax bill by $36.90, regardless of the home’s value.

While most people qualify for the general exemption, fewer (approximately 8.3% of the Sugar Hill population, according to the US Census) qualify for the senior exemption. Few qualify for the low-income disability exemption, mostly due to the stringent income requirement. So, not many people can leverage the ability to stack exemptions. The few who do qualify for all three exemptions would save a total of $110.70 (three exemptions at $36.90 each).

However, all of that assumes that you’re one of the homeowners whose property value was unchanged this year. If you were one of the 41% of single-family homeowners or 65% of townhome owners whose property values increased on average around 10% this year, your taxes are likely increasing even as the increased Homestead Exemptions take effect.

The following table shows the change in your City of Sugar Hill property taxes given the slightly lower millage rate AND the newly increased general (regular) Homestead Exemption for which most homeowners in Sugar Hill qualify, if your 2024 property value increased by the average amount.

In that case, you can see that only taxpayers whose homes are worth less than $200,000 are getting a tax cut. Anything more than $200,000, your taxes would be going up.

While the City of Sugar Hill sometimes likes to put the responsibility for these tax increases on Gwinnett County, the truth is, these tax increases ARE the sole responsibility of the City of Sugar Hill. The Gwinnett Tax Assessors simply record values based on fair market data. Gwinnett County provides the City of Sugar Hill with full information about the property values well before the City proposes its millage rate for the year.

The City adjusts its millage rate for the amount of tax revenue it wants.