Latest news with #Widenhouse
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Muscogee County School District and the City of Columbus discuss opting-out of floating homestead exemption
COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Both the Muscogee County School District and Columbus City officials held meetings on Monday to discuss opting – out of House Bill 581. House Bill 581 passed overwhelmingly in November across the state of Georgia. This bill creates a 'floating' homestead exemption for property taxes on homestead properties. However, the legislation includes a provision that allows counties, consolidated governments, municipalities, and local school districts to opt- in or out based on what they believe is best for their communities. Columbus City Manager Isaiah Hugley says 61.5% of Muscogee County citizens voted in favor of the exemption while 38.5% voted against it in November. The Muscogee County School Board discussed opting – out at Monday's meeting. Chair of the Muscogee County School Board Patricia Hugley-Green says, 'Due to our local frozen assessment homestead, the statewide floating homestead is of no benefit to the vast majority of our homeowners and will be confusing and potentially costly to implement with zero benefit to the majority of taxpayers.' Those in attendance posed no opposition to the board's intent to opt- out. In Columbus City Council Chambers, Tax Assessor Suzanne Widenhouse explained if council chooses to opt- out it has no effect on the current frozen homestead and allows Muscogee County to keep control of the homestead instead of the state. 'Opting out keeps things more stable,' Widenhouse explains. '…not being set by state and not being changed by the state and not using a national index that's not even Georgia specific or better Muscogee County Specific.' Widenhouse says opting out would allow for Columbus officials to put in place a floating homestead at a later date that would be more suitable for Columbus residents. 'If values really tanked with the floating homestead in place, it's not that taxes are going to go down. We're not giving up services. Citizens don't want to give up services. We like our fire department. We like our police department. We like having nice roads. We like having garbage pickup. We like having water and sewer and those things. Those aren't going away, but they have to be paid for somehow, which means budget cuts or increases to the mileage rate, so opting out keeps things more stable.' Suzanne Widenhouse, Columbus Tax Assessor Widenhouse informed those in attendance how the state has already begun changing the verbiage of the legislation. 'The first one was changing the opt-out period. Trying to extend it a little bit, give counties a little more time,' Widenhouse details. '…the latest language on that bill is talking about changing actual provisions of this floating homestead and, you know, changing how many acres and adding in being able to apply for Homestead during appeal periods and things of that nature.' Members of the community shared the floor asking questions, voicing their concerns, and sharing their support for Columbus to opt-out. 'Leave the freeze like it is and if y'all could come up with a new provision for the floating homestead that's actually a little more catered to the citizens instead of the legislature are about raising up everything because like we talked about this morning, everything goes up. Even though they say it's going down it goes down at a slow pace, though but when it comes or them to raise anything it happens dramatically, and it takes a toll it on the citizens to try to adjust to that. By the time we adjust to it, they tacking on to it again.' Columbus Resident, Bunker Hill Widenhouse says the current CPI is unknown as the state is proposing to use the national CPI rate that would change every year. 'We won't know that because it will not apply to 2025,' Widenhouse explains. 'The first year of the CPI would go into effect would be 2026.' The Muscogee County School Board and the City of Columbus will hold more meetings regarding opting-out throughout February. The city of Columbus will hold the next meeting on Tuesday, February 11 at 9 a.m. during the City Council Meeting. The Muscogee County School Board will hold two more on Tuesday, February 18 at 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. at the Public Education Center on Macon Road. The opt-out period runs from January 1st to March 1st. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Columbus City Council discusses House Bill 581
COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — In Georgia, House Bill 581 passed overwhelmingly last year. This created a statewide floating homestead exemption. For the city of Columbus, this new exemption poses some uncertainty as the city already has a tax freeze on residential property taxes. House bill 581 allows counties, consolidated governments, municipalities, and local school districts to opt- in or out based on what they believe is best for their communities. The Muscogee County School district has already begun holding public meetings to discuss opting out. As for the City, it must hold three public meetings to discuss potentially opting out. On Tuesday, a presentation about House Bill 581 was given by the city's tax assessor Suzanne Widenhouse. She explains this bill created a floating homestead that would adjust the base year value by an inflationary index, both up or down. Columbus has a property tax freeze, which means the taxpayer would receive whichever is most beneficial. Widenhouse says this can be very complex. 'Particularly when you consider the fact that our homestead tops out at two acres and these is no acreage limit on this particular homestead,' Widenhouse explains. 'So, while we have what we call 'H' accounts which are properties that exceed two acres that are homestead, they get the freeze on the two acres and then anything over than is subject to fair market. Under this, they would potentially have the floating homestead for the full acreage.' According to the Columbus Elections and Registrations Office, 61.5% of active voters in Columbus voted for House Bill 581. However, District 2 Councilor Glenn Davis explains why he supports opting out. 'If the economic downturn comes, that means you're going to have a housing crisis and not only that, but this city is also built on pennies. People are not going to be able to spend this much and you're not going to be able to collect sales tax revenue, 'Davis explains. 'You have to have revenue to run the city. In order to do that, the taxpayer or the property owner may get a valuation decrease, but nobody's telling that property owner that you can increase valuations, you can increase the millage to get that revenue, you need to run the city,' Davis says. 'Nobody's telling them you can expand the urban service districts all the way out in Midland. Nobody's telling them the taxes and the other fees that would have to go up to run the operations of this city.' Other cities in Georgia can opt- in as they have access to a local option sales tax that is used to pay operations. However, Columbus does not have that option. ' We don't have access to that because a consolidated governments are only allowed two local option sales taxes and one of ours was a commitment made to the community to have 70% go towards public safety, 30% towards infrastructure. So that's off the table,' explains Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson. Based on opinions from firms in Atlanta and the attorney general's office, Columbus City Attorney Clifton Fay says House Bill 581 does not adversely affect our local constitutional homestead freeze whether the city chooses to opt- in or out. Columbus will begin holding public meetings to discuss opting out the first week of February. Those proposed meeting dates are the following: Monday, February 10th at 9 a.m. Monday, February 10th at 6 p.m. Tuesday, February 11th during a city council meeting at 9 a.m. The decision to opt- out has to be completed by March 1st. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
