Fayette school board proposes property tax increase above rollback rate with hearings set

The assessment notice that lands in a Fayetteville mailbox this fall shows a school-tax rate of 19.6 mills — the same number homeowners saw a year ago. A family whose homesteaded home sits at the district's $575,000 benchmark still pays about $34.88 more on the school line of that bill. The Fayette County Board of Education is proposing to keep its maintenance and operations rate at 19.600 mills for 2026, and because the county's 2026 rollback rate has fallen to 19.447 mills, state law counts that unchanged number as a property tax increase.

The 0.153-mill gap between the two rates — a 0.79 percent increase — requires the proposal to be advertised and heard at public meetings before the board can adopt it. With the school system's bond debt now fully retired, the bond millage sits at 0.000, so all 19.6 mills goes to maintenance and operations.

Why the rollback fell

A rollback rate is simply the millage that would collect the same total revenue on this year's tax digest that last year's rate produced before reassessments. Fayette's digest did not stand still: personal-property values jumped about 278 percent, roughly $2 billion, driven largely by data-center equipment at the QTS facility, and that growth pushed the rollback rate below the 19.6-mill mark.

By holding at 19.6 mills instead of stepping down to 19.447, the board keeps the full weight of that new value in the tax base — and the 0.153-mill difference lands on every Fayette property owner's bill, not just on the data center that drove the growth.

The bill in dollars

The district's own estimate makes it concrete: about $34.88 more on a homesteaded home at $575,000 fair-market value, and about $38.25 for a non-homestead property at $625,000. One mill is $1 of tax per $1,000 of assessed value, Georgia assesses residential property at 40 percent of fair-market value, and the 0.153-mill difference on a $625,000 home — assessed at $250,000 — works out to about $38.25, matching the district's published figure. It is a modest amount in any one year, roughly the price of a few takeout dinners, but it sits on the school-tax line every year, and any homeowner can check their own assessment notice against those two benchmarks.

The board's framing is that there is no rate increase at all: it is holding the line at the existing 19.6 mills required by the FY2027 budget adopted May 20.

Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Patterson said the district expects about $40 million in QTS tax revenue, most of it by the end of 2026 and the full amount by January 2027. "We are anticipating receiving that money as revenue," he said, adding, "That's kind of new money for us." It is new money collected at a rate held above rollback — the same difference that shows up on every Fayette homeowner's bill.

When to be heard

The first two required public hearings were October 5, at 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., at the Fayette County Board of Education building, 205 LaFayette Avenue West in Fayetteville. The final hearing is October 19 at 6:30 p.m., and the board's adoption vote follows at 7:00 p.m. in the same building — the LaFayette Educational Center, Building A, 205 LaFayette Avenue West. That 6:30 p.m. hearing is the last chance to speak before the rate locks in.

Georgia's rules explain the two-week gap: at least one hearing must begin between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on a business day, and two of the three must sit at least five business days apart. For anyone planning to speak, sign-up opens in person 30 minutes before the meeting, each speaker gets three minutes, comments go to the chair and are taken under advisement, and residents, business owners, employees, and students are all eligible. A speaker at the 6:30 p.m. hearing should plan to arrive around 6:00 p.m.

Separately, Fayette County voters will see a school-tax question on the November 3 ballot: whether to adopt a floating homestead exemption that would take effect January 1, 2027, tied to collections above 2025 levels. The October 19 vote sets this year's bill; the November 3 referendum decides whether future bills carry that cushion.