Millage Rate Increase Affects Residential, Business, Motor Vehicles

The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 Tuesday to approve a property tax increase that will go into effect for tax bills due in October.

The measure increases Cobb’s millage rate from 9.6 to 11.11 mills, a 15.7 percent increase.

Residents were given the example of a $105 increase per $200,000 in home value, but Stefani Balli, administrative coordinator for county Finance Director Jim Pehrson, told Northeast Cobb Patch that the millage rate increase affects all classes of property, including:

• Residential.
• Personal.
• Commercial.
• Public utilities.
• Motor vehicles.
• Mobile homes.
• Timber.
• Heavy-duty equipment.

In addition to residential property taxes, the taxes on motor vehicles and construction equipment will increase. The cost of doing business in Cobb will increase, and business owners could pass the added expense on to consumers.

Northeast Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell cast a dissenting vote Tuesday, saying she supported an increase in the millage rate for the fire fund but not the general and debt-service funds. She presented her own plan for cost saving.

“I can’t justify raising taxes when people are out of work on fixed incomes and struggling to make ends meet,” Birrell told the Marietta Daily Journal. “No one is a bigger advocate of all of our many services than me, but folks if we don’t have the money to fund them we have to do without or be wiling to pay for them.”