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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - CC - 08/02/2021 - Special Called Meeting1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 1 of 14 Mayor: Mayor Joe Lockwood present. Councilmembers Present: Councilmember Peyton Jamison, Councilmember Paul Moore, Councilmember Laura Bentley, Councilmember Carol Cookerly, Councilmember Joe Longoria, and Councilmember Rick Mohrig. Councilmember(s) Absent: There were technical difficulties at the beginning of the meeting. The recording began after Call to Order, Roll Call, and the Pledge of Allegiance. PUBLIC COMMENT Mayor Lockwood: Okay, let's, how about now? Okay, we're recording? All right, the next item is general public comment. General public comment is a time for citizens to share information with the Mayor and City Council and to provide input and opinions on any matter that is not scheduled for its own public hearing during today's meeting. Each citizen can choose to participate in public comment must complete a comment card and submit it to the City Clerk. Please remember this is not a time to engage the Mayor or members of City Council in conversation. When your name is called, please come forward and speak into the microphone, stating your name and address for the record. You'll have five minutes for remarks. Okay, if we can hear our public comment please. City Clerk: Yes, thank you Mayor. Our first general public comment is Miss Karen Dubin. Ms. Dubin: Good morning. Karen Dubin, 200 Davis Glen Court, Milton, Georgia. I just wanted to bring upon a comment about, I did receive an email from Steve about the process, about running our own election. And I just wanted to mention a few things about the process for running our own election using paper ballots is quite simple compared to training people for using the machines. I mean, the only thing that the City would need to purchase, and we could probably get that from Fulton County, is the ballot box. But training people for paper ballots and the process is basically we need to just employ people, we need to get the voter rolls and divide the voter rolls up from A to L and M through Z, and we print our ballots, and we hand the ballot out, and the person votes, and then they put it in to the ballot box. So what I was going to do later today is do the process in a flowchart and send it in and you Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 2 of 14 can look at that. But I also have, I'll leave these with Tammy, the facilities for voting are already set. There's already, there's eight of them in Milton here, so the locations and everything like that is already been done. You can look at those locations, they're the same as prior in November third. So we haven't changed locations for voting in the City. So we would need to employ for those eight locations. But after listening at that Mayor's in Johns Creek, ah, I don't think anybody in other cities really looked through the contract and really questioned whether or not you were gonna be reimbursed, whether, you know for being reimbursed for Fulton County because you're not if you look at this contract. So you're gonna spend $84,000 to run an election for 3,000 people, which we probably, we could do ourselves. That's, it's incredible to me that nobody's even looked at the contract over. So I will send the, my flow process to Tammy and she can forward it to you for later today. All right. Here is these. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you. Ms. Dubin: You're welcome. City Clerk: Thank you. FIRST PRESENTATION Mayor Lockwood: Okay. If that's our last general public comment, we'll move onto to our public hearing. If you'll please sound the item, Tammy. City Clerk: The First Presentation item is Consideration of an Ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton, Georgia, to Establish the Ad Valorem Tax Rate of the City of Milton for Fiscal Year 2022; and for Other Purposes. It's Agenda Item No. 21-227, Ms. Bernadette Harvill. (Inaudible) I did. Oh, Mayor, I'm sorry, you'll need to vote on the First Presentation. Mayor Lockwood: Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, yup, First Presentation item, missed that, so will you please call the First Presentation item? City Clerk: Consideration of an Ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 3 of 14 City of Milton, Georgia, to Establish the Ad Valorem Tax Rate of the City of Milton for Fiscal Year 2022; and for Other Purposes. Agenda Item No. 21-227, Ms. Bernadette Harvill. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, do I have a motion and a second? Mr. Longoria: Mayor, I move that we approve the First Presentation as read. Mr. Moore: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion from Councilmember Longoria with a second from Councilmember Moore. All in favor, please say aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve the First Presentation item as read. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (7-0). Mayor Lockwood: That's unanimous. Okay, now we'll move on to our Public Hearing and if Tammy please call out the item. PUBLIC HEARING City Clerk: Mayor, we do have a Public Comment for the Public Hearing. I'll go ahead and call Mr. Robin Fricton, to the podium. Mr. Fricton: Good morning. I feel vastly outnumbered by the Council and the lack of participation of our, of our citizens. Hopefully they've been emailing you. The reason I want to talk is Mayor Lockwood: Excuse me, Mr. Fricton. If you don't mind, name and address just for the record. Mr. Fricton: Oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Robin Fricton at 2970 Francis Road. Lived here almost 40 years now. The reason I want to talk is, maybe the neighbors don't mind, but we had, in my area, and I've looked at the records, we've have between a 33 and 37 percent increase in property values in my area. Now, somebody like me, I can't really go fight it because the neigh, the homes around me have been selling, similar to mine and property, for uh a little bit 1 1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 4 of 14 more than what, what's on my, my assessment. Now, I know that, I know y'all didn't do the assessments. I'm hoping though, you're going back to the County to complain about why, why are we having these kind of assessments in the middle of a pandemic. The people of not only Milton, Fulton County, and Georgia, but the country, this, we've had this pandemic now for a year and a half and it's unfortunately seems to be continuing on. And we've got major people, you know, still out of work, but even, the problem is though, if you, even if they got a job that paid five or ten percent more, if you're living in Milton, you just got hit with a 30 percent increase, at least 30 percent. The homes, the smaller places, meaning less acreage, got hit with a 33 and a 37 percent. The, I know the horse farms around here got hit with 17 percent. So it's everybody's got hit, what I'm hoping is that you'll reduce the millage rate at least 10 percent. Get it down, so people can stay in Milton, okay. I'm a retiree, I can tell you for a fact, we're Social Security is not matching, has anything to with inflation which has been going on for a lot longer than this year. Now with this, I mean, any increases I get Social Security are gonna be gone. In fact, I'd need more because of this. My, I can't, my wife and I both have both worked, so we're above the income levels to get the senior exemptions. And I can't remember if you can adjust those senior exemptions, but as the home rates go up, the salaries have gone up in the last 30 years, from where, whenever they started this. Right now, I believe it's like 45,000. My thing is, if I would go up to at least 90,000 for people who are making 90,000 less for, to get additional exemptions, okay. We've, exemptions, I mean, they'll help, but the the big one is all based on income. So that's why I'm asking to look at the millage rate, see if you can reduce it down, I know we have one up for the greenspace. If you could reduce it to the amount of what you want to do for the greenspace. Take off the, the operating budget, at least a little bit. Just to say, just to show, hey we know people are having a rough time and you know y'all are in the same boat, y'all gotta pay the same taxes I do. And just, you know, I think with all the new housing going on, I believe you'll still get a lot, there's still a lot of money out there that you are gonna get, that probably hasn't been counted yet. I mean I got a new home coming up next to me, there's a new home, there's new construction going on Francis Road up and down the road now. So I'm hoping if you look at the operating budget, see if you can reduce some things and help the people of Milton. I would appreciate it. Thanks very much. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you. Okay, Bernadette. Our rollback rate is the previous year's millage rate minus the millage equivalent to the total net assessed value added by reassessments. I'll go over that in a little more detail later. I have some math behind these ads so it makes a little more sense than just reading the definitions. And finally the millage rate equivalent is the equation where the reassessment of existing real property is divided by the current year's net digest and then multiplied by the prior year's millage rate. Any time the City proposes a millage rate that exceeds the computed roll back rate, they must hold three public hearings to allow for citizen input. In addition to the public hearings, the City Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 5 of 14 Ms. Harvill: Good morning, Mayor and Council. We are here this morning to discuss setting the 2021 Millage Rate. This is the first of three required public hearings and we'll go into the details of those requirements a little later on in the presentation. First we have the agenda for this public hearing. We will go over some important definitions, followed by the State's requirements for public hearings and advertisements regarding setting a millage rate. Next we will discuss the millage rate options. Please keep in mind that you can approve any millage rate up to the legal cap of 4.731 for maintenance and operations. Following that, I will breakdown the digest by category and show the taxes that will be levied at the capped millage rate and the rolled back millage rate which will be followed up by a discussion on the projected revenues for fiscal year 2022. After that we will look at some ways property owners can reduce their tax liability, we'll look at how to calculate a tax bill, and the value of citizen's tax dollars. Finally, in closing we'll discuss levels of service under the different millage rate options. I have some samples for some certain definitions to help you understand what the topics we're going to be talking about mean. A mill is $1 per $1,000 of Assessed Property Value or .001 times the assessed value. That is the rate at which are taxed at in the City. The fair market value is an estimate of the market value of your property as determined by the Fulton County Board of Assessors. They do have some legal requirements to try to stay with the market on those values. Your assessed or taxable value is the assessed, is equal to 40% of the fair market value. And property taxes are calculated by multiplying the millage rate times the assessed value and then adjusting for any exemptions that the citizens are eligible for. Our rollback rate is the previous year's millage rate minus the millage equivalent to the total net assessed value added by reassessments. I'll go over that in a little more detail later. I have some math behind these ads so it makes a little more sense than just reading the definitions. And finally the millage rate equivalent is the equation where the reassessment of existing real property is divided by the current year's net digest and then multiplied by the prior year's millage rate. Any time the City proposes a millage rate that exceeds the computed roll back rate, they must hold three public hearings to allow for citizen input. In addition to the public hearings, the City Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 6 of 14 is required to place two ads and prepare a formal press release. At least one week before each public hearing, the notice of property tax increase must be published, and at least one week before the meeting where the millage rate would be voted on we must advertise the five year history of levy. Both ads must also be made available up on the City's website and our Communications Director, Greg Botelho, has helped me ensure these requirements are met. Here you can see our calendar for this year's millage rate presentation. We have First Presentation this morning and the first Public Hearing. This evening will have the second Public Hearing, and next Monday the ninth we'll have the final Public Hearing and Unfinished Business to vote on the millage rate for this year. Here are some of the advertisements that we made seen in the paper. You can see here, this is the notice of property tax increase when we take that millage equivalent into consideration. That was placed in the paper over the last two weeks. And then we have the five-year history of levy which just takes 100% of the levy compared year over year. And this is just a breakdown of the slide from the calculations that we have to use to do that math so just to be transparent, I wanted to include that, we don't have to go over it in detail. But that compares 2020's digest figures prepared by Fulton County to 2021. I do, I would like to point out that our exemptions are all based on our best estimate at the time of presentation of the digest so we don't have the 2021 values to base it on, we have to use last year's digest and base our figures on that. And the County does not ever get the true up values, so there are some, it's not too material, but there are some differences between what we report as our exemptions elsewhere and what you see here today. But we have to use this for legal purposes. So here's the math behind the ads. As I mentioned earlier, I leave this out to calculate the figures you'll see in the advertisements. We don't have to go over this in detail, but I find it important to include it so the citizens can follow the numbers to the definitions and the math. So as you can see, when you do all of the math as required by State law we get to that 6.08% that was advertised in the notice of increase. And on this ad the five-year history of levy when you compare 100% levy to 100% levy, you get that 9.3% increase. F I 1 C Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 7 of 14 The next few slides, we'll go over the millage rate scenarios including the capped millage rate of 4.731 which also happens to be Milton's current millage rate and the calculated rollback rate which would offset any increase that resulted from reassessments of existing real property and that's the 4.460 mills. Again at the bottom you can see the separately calculated Greenspace Bond millage rate. This is the variable rate used to allow for property tax collections for debt service payments on the bond including principal and interest that are due in FY2022. This rate is addition to the M&O rate and does not include the cap of 4.731. Any revenues we have over what we needed to spend last year go towards reducing that, so that's how it's reduced this year and the excess fund balance will go towards paying off that debt if we're at the calculated new millage rate. Here you can see the net M&O digest and the taxes that will be levied under the two millage rate options we discussed. While the levy is based on 100% collection rate, we do not budget based on that collection rate. The digest is a snapshot in time and is subject to change based on appeal decisions and exemption updates. In addition, our historical data shows that Milton collects approximately 97% of the real property levy, 65% of the personal property levy, and around 55% of the motor vehicle levy in year one. On this slide you can see the anticipated revenue projections based on the collection rates just mentioned at each millage rate discussed. Please note the capped millage rate is 6% more than the rollback rate which correlates to the calculations we went over earlier that were put in that notice of increase advertisement. So here you can see we anticipate 97% for real property, 65% for personal property, and 55% for motor vehicle. At 4.731 is the total budgeted revenues for year one would be 13,334,400 dollars. And at 4.460 would be 12,570,582 dollars. At the bottom of the page I just gave to you for some reference, our current amended budget for 21 and property collections to date for 21 so you see they're right around that 12,382,269. The summary here compares the current year projections for FY22 to 21's amended budget for the revenues. You can see on the property taxes line that includes more than just real, personal, motor vehicle it also includes the title ad valorem tax which is not go by the digest but is that value based the sales tax when you buy 1 J 1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 8 of 14 a vehicle. We are anticipating that to decrease slightly due to car sales kinda booming right now, we're not sure how long that will go on. And additionally, we have that intangible tax rate which is when you buy a, when you refinance or buy a home, the tax on the note for the loan you take out. So again, not anticipating current levels of refinancing and home sales to continue throughout the entire year, that's going down a little as well. So where you see a .3% decrease, it's taking those into consideration as well. To be transparent on the real property tax current year we currently have a 5.1% increase and on the personal property a 2.4% decrease so we will go over in detail all of the line items for revenues at the next Monday evening workshop so we'll go over the budget detail before you vote on any millage rate so that's just a snapshot in time of what we have right now we're still zeroing in on the final numbers so some of those are subject to change slightly but should be immaterial. I do like to go over at this time some opportunities for tax savings so our property owners understand what they are eligible for. As Milton's digest is primarily residential, the City recognizes several exemptions in order to reduce the tax liability for qualifying property owners. There is the basic homestead exemption, three available to our senior population including a full value option, and a full value exemption for those with permanent disabilities. And finally we have the newly implemented floating CPI exemption which applies to the primary residence and up to five continuous acres of land. This exemption alone outpaces all of Milton's other exemptions including the full value exemptions we just discussed. The floating exemption is the difference between the current assessed value and the adjusted base year value. What that does is it takes into consideration capping any increases at 3%. Later on in this presentation I have a copy of the tax assessment so we can kinda go over how Fulton County presents the assessments, what they are required to present, and how that floating exemption comes into play to kind of reduce the growth of every senior assessments. Exemption applications for the City are due by April 1 of each calendar year to qualify for that year's tax bill. And the qualifying income amount for those income based exemptions was around $72,264 for 2021 and is based on the annual maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at full retirement age. In addition to our City exemptions, there is the Conservation Use Value Assessment that many of our property owners take r� i L' Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 9 of 14 advantage of which is under the CUVA. Properties under the 2,000 acres that reduce their tax liability. There is a requirement to maintain the property with those standards for a period of ten years and if approved the property value will be based on land use rather than that market value assessment. So here's that property tax notice that everyone receives in the mail. It does stir up a lot of questions for the Finance team at this time of year. And I just want to go over some of things that we get frequently asked questions about. It is important to note that this assessment is not a bill and although the County provides an estimate at the bottom of the assessment, property owners should not use it to calculate their anticipated taxes due for two main reasons. Number one, tax assessment notices go out before the digest is sent to the cities for them to begin processing, the process of setting the millage rate. So Fulton County uses the prior year's millage rate in their assessments so that data already right there, you've not chosen a millage rate, so the millage in that tax form is not what is set. And number two, Fulton County does not maintain parcel level exemption data for Milton's exemptions. So if you qualify for a City exemption, it will not appear on this assessment notice. We get a large volume of calls from our senior population each year concerned that we have missed their full value exemption for the year, as well as other property owners who qualify for the new floating homestead exemption believing that we have missed that as well, but really the exemption comes into place later to reduce that value (Inaudible -20:08) Also wanted to notice that the Consumer Price Index clause that was put into the law to quote unquote cap the annual increase of taxes is realized through an exemption not the assessed value. The County has legal requirements to ensure fair market value is accurate and up- to-date and that floating exemption calculation which is not provided on these assessments is what provides the tax relief for those who qualify. So moving on, we'll discuss a little bit about how to calculate your tax bill when you do have the property numbers and millage rate. The average fair market value according to last year's digest was $575,000 and this slide shows what that property owner with a basic homestead exemption would pay in taxes at each of the outlined millage rates. Please note for simplicity this example does not take into consideration any floating homestead exemptions that they may be eligible for. So you take your assessed value, which is 40% of the fair market value, you reduce 1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 10 of 14 it by all of your exemptions, and you get a taxable subtotal. Then you multiply our millage rate times that taxable subtotal. For this example, at the two different millage rates, the one 4.731 that property owner would pay 1,017 dollars and 17 cents and at the rollback rate they would pay 958 dollars and 90 cents. Here we're going to talk about the value of that, those taxes that you pay at this same average fair market value of 575,000 dollars with the homestead exemption of 15,000, therefore paying 1,017 dollars and 65 cents. This is how that money gets spread across the different departments we have at an annual, monthly and daily rate so for two dollars and 79 cents a day, that property owner with the 575,000 dollar home would pay for all the services under the general fund. This other breakdown shows you annually for the two different millage rates, what they would pay and how that breaks down in case anyone is interested to see how that changes based on those two different millage rates. Now the rationale for the 4.731 millage rate. The capped millage rate should, allows the City to continue the capital improvement plan under the currently approved timeline. It allows the newly approved master plans to be addressed in a timely manner. Now as we just spoke at length, over time the capped millage rate has many challenges. Once again, Milton has unique commercial footprint, which is limited compared to many other jurisdictions. The assessed values in the community in the past were not accurately maintained, but now we have this CPI floating exemption which keeps it capped as well. And third, Milton has a dedicated is a dedication to its rural character which results and maintains that limited commercial growth and density. Lastly, the ability to not defer capital maintenance saves more in the long run by prolonging the life of our assets and avoiding costly premature replacements. Moving on to talk about our current operations versus new initiatives when we go into our budgeting cycle. This is the first thing we look at to make some determinations, as always the City's first priority is to maintain existing operations and services at the level our community has come to expect. Once corresponding funds have been allocated to that and the City's debt service requirements, new initiatives could be taken into consideration. Here we just have an example of how that would works with road 1 1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 11 of 14 maintenance. The current operations are to repave the roads as scheduled. If we wanted to have an enhanced level of service we would repave additional roads needing attention or maybe do a full depth reclamation in an area that was in need. And a new initiative would be to construct an entirely new road to ease some congestion. So there is an example of how we look at the different levels of our budgeting each year. Then we have our service level requests. Before we address any other questions, this will be the last thing we go over. Here we have the opportunities to increase service levels based on feedback from many of the departments that they have received from citizens over the years. Staff has been focused on addressing these items with current resources, but we continue to be the main topics of discussion. Those include maintenance of newly acquired greenspaces such as hazard mitigation, trail maintenance and mowing. Improved debris management. Timely implementation of City plans. Right-of-way mowing frequency. Paving. Access to active park facilities and more. And as always there is the effort that we need to put toward attracting and retaining a highly talented work force. We will be going over the proposed FY22 budget in the next meeting on the 9h including continuing operations and new initiatives, in detail before you vote on the millage rate. And you will see funding requests dedicated to these categories to meet the requests of the community and to ensure Milton remains one of the best places to live in Georgia. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Mayor Lockwood: Questions for Bernadette? Laura. Ms. Bentley: I just have a quick comment, so as we now have millage, you know the gap that we're seeing between the millage and the rollback, that number is usually the basis for our budget review. So I'd be very interested to understand the 763,000 and change where, how that falls in the budget with our, for example, something that I hear a lot from our citizens is we have great, the greenspace bond which is great, we want access to the greenspace and I know that that does not come, that comes with a price tag so being able to address those concerns to the citizens with the gap in the overage that we're seeing by not rolling back the millage rate I'd like to understand what that can get us with access and also maintenance because the maintenance is not part of the greenspace bond, correct? G 1 1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 12 of 14 Ms. Harvill: Absolutely, currently we are using that greenspace bond to acquire the properties and we had set out funding to be able to do the work that's needed to open them safely. And so that money goes towards those capital items as well as the newly active parks that we've spoken about and getting all of those things up and running. And we will have directive links for you in that budget presentation to show where those dollars are going. Ms. Bentley: Yup, that would be helpful. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Anybody else with questions, comments? Okay. Ms. Harvill: Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I'll, let's see, we've already heard public comment on this so I'll close that part of the hearing and open up for a motion. City Clerk: That's just one of three. Mayor Lockwood: I'm sorry. Tammy, if you'll call the next. EXECUTIVE SESSION City Clerk: That's all, Mayor. Just a reminder the second public hearing tonight that will be in tonight's regular session meeting. Mayor, if you'll want to call for executive session. Mayor Lockwood: City Clerk: Mr. Longoria: Call for Executive session. Executive session. Mayor Lockwood: Oh, okay, well, no, all right. City Clerk: There's no more items. Mayor Lockwood: I misunderstood from Bernadette, one of three, but absolutely, one of three. Ms. Harvill: (inaudible) Mayor Lockwood: Absolutely, but I, yeah, but okay, not three more times today or Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 13 of 14 right know. Okay, so we added an executive session in our agenda so I'll ask for a motion to move into executive session to discuss Mr. Mohrig: So moved. Mayor Lockwood: potential land acquisition, litigation, or personnel. Mr. Mohrig: So moved. Ms. Cookerly: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember Mohrig with a second by Councilmember Cookerly. All in favor, please say aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That's unanimous. Thank you. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to adjourn to Executive Session. Councilmember Cookerly seconded the motion. The motion passed (7- 0). RECONVENE Mayor PT Jamison: Okay, a motion to reconvene. Ms. Bentley: Mr. Moore So moved. Second. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Bentley moved to reconvene after Executive Session. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (4-0). Mayor Lockwood, Councilmember Cookerly, and Councilmember Longoria left the meeting at the conclusion of Executive Session and were absent from the vote. 1 1 Special Called Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, August 2, 2021 at 9:00 am Page 14 of 14 ADJOURNMENT Mayor PT Jamison: All right, I have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. All right, can I have a motion to adjourn? Mr. Mohrig: So moved. Mr. Moore: Second. Mayor PT Jamison: All right, all in favor say aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Mayor PT Jamison: All right, that's it. See y'all tonight. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to adjourn the City Council special called meeting at 11:33 am. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (4-0). Mayor Lockwood, Councilmember Cookerly, and Councilmember Longoria left the meeting at the conclusion of Executive Session and were absent from the vote. Date Approved: August 16, 2021 I OX L. Lot, i C Joe Lock Mayor