The Newton County Board of Education held a special public hearing at 9 a.m. to review proposed millage-rate options for fiscal year 2026, hear a staff presentation of legal and financial context and accept public comment. Board Chair Coggin presided.

Board Chair Coggin opened the hearing and turned the presentation over to Dr. Bradley and Erica Robinson, the district’s chief financial officer, who laid out the district’s millage history, legal notice requirements and how different millage rates would affect district revenue and typical homeowners.

Why it matters: The board must set a millage rate that funds school operations and meets state notice requirements while weighing taxpayer impact. The presentation showed the district’s tax digest growth, revenue projections at several millage levels and sample household impacts to help the board weigh options before final adoption later in the process.

Dr. Bradley urged caution about repeated reductions in recent years while noting constraints on future budgets. “I’m recommending that this board adopt a decrease to the district’s millage rate, which is currently set at 15.75 mills,” Dr. Bradley said, adding that long-term cost pressures make future increases “virtually inevitable.”

Erica Robinson, the district chief financial officer, reviewed the legal steps required for adopting a millage rate and described the rollback-rate process. “According to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated 48-5-32, each levying authority must publish a current tax digest and a five-year history of levy,” Robinson said. She added that “OCGA 48-5-32.1 mandates that if the proposed millage rate exceeds the rollback rate, we must advertise this fact and hold three public hearings.”

Robinson presented the most recent tax digest and revenue scenarios. The district’s FY2026 tax digest was reported as about $6.1 billion. Staff presented a gross-revenue estimate of roughly $96.6 million at a 15.75 mill rate and said that keeping the adopted 15.75 mills applied to the updated digest would yield about $1.8 million more in net local revenue than the budget baseline used to build the FY2026 budget.

The presentation included multiple rate options and estimated revenue impacts: 15.75 (current proposed), 15.70, 15.65, 15.6, 15.55, 15.5 and 15.448 (the point closest to no change in revenue). Robinson said adopting the rollback rate of 14.84 mills would reduce revenue relative to the FY2026 budget projection by approximately $3.6 million.

Staff gave sample homeowner comparisons to show practical effects. For a homestead property with a market value of $325,000 (assessed at 40% = $130,000, minus a $4,000 homestead exemption = $126,000 taxable), the tax at 15.75 mills would be about $1,984.50; at the rollback rate of 14.84 mills it would be about $1,869.84. For a non‑homestead property with a $300,000 market value (taxable value $120,000), tax at 15.75 mills would be about $1,890.

Robinson explained the interaction of local and state funding: the district’s budget projection assumes about 58% of revenues from the state and 42% locally, and an increasing digest raises the required local 5‑mil share to the state’s Quality Basic Education calculation — a change that staff estimated would reduce state funding to the district by an estimated $9.2 million over the next three years (equivalent to roughly 1.51 mills), based on the digest growth scenario described in the presentation.

No members of the public had signed up to speak. After a short period for board questions and with no speakers registered, the board took a procedural motion to adjourn the hearing and reconvene at 5 p.m. for the next required public hearing and to adopt the millage at a later work session.

Board Chair Coggin closed the hearing with instructions about the next steps: the final public hearing will be held August 12 at 5 p.m. at the Board of Education administrative offices, followed by the board’s regular work session at 7 p.m., at which the board will formally adopt the FY2026 millage rate.