The Forsyth County Board of Education on July 29 held its third and final public meeting on the proposed 2026 millage rate but did not vote on the rate, saying the board will reconvene shortly to take a vote.

At the start of the special-called meeting, board members unanimously adopted the meeting agenda and then heard a presentation from Chief Financial Officer Larry Hamill on the district’s tax digest, rollback calculations and budget drivers for fiscal 2026. Hamill said the district is proposing to keep the 2026 millage at the 2025 level of 15.28 mills; he said the rollback calculation for the operating millage would be 14.626 mills and the rollback for debt service would be 1.365 mills. "For 2026, the millage rate from 2025 was 15.28 for the current year that we just closed, and we're proposing a 15.28 as well for the current year coming up for '26," Hamill said.

Hamill showed the district’s PT-32-1 tax digest report, saying the net digest rose from roughly $22.3 billion to $23.9 billion between the 2020 and 2025 digest years. He attributed much of that increase to reassessments — about $913 million — with other changes and exemptions reducing the taxable digest by roughly $675 million (the transcript contained an extra set of zeros on this figure that appears to be a transcription error and has been corrected to $675,000,000). Because of the digest growth, Hamill said the mathematical rollback that would hold revenue flat would reduce the operating rate to about 14.626 mills; keeping the rate at 15.28 mills instead would amount to a roughly 3.98% increase in revenue compared with the rollback figure.

Board members and the public focused discussion on why the board proposed keeping the millage at the current level. In public comment, resident Jeremy Echek asked for clarification of the reassessment and rollback process: "I just wanna make sure that I understand the process of this assessment," Echek said. Hamill and other board members said a combination of factors — state-mandated cost increases, inflation-driven operating costs and local obligations — limited the district’s ability to reduce the millage.

Board members described a recent run of state “pass-downs” that have increased local costs. Hamill and other speakers said the district received roughly $26 million in new state-mandated costs this year and about $90 million over the last three to four years that the district must fund locally. Those pass-downs included increases to the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) and health-care obligations. Hamill said the district’s total budget is about $750 million and that roughly $207 million of that is dictated by TRS and health-care costs.

Board members emphasized that local budget increases were relatively modest in areas under their control: the locally funded portion of the budget rose by about 1.56% this year, and the district provided employee step increases but no general cost-of-living increase (COLA). The board also noted operating costs such as HVAC replacements and fuel rose this year by several million dollars after the district had kept such costs low for prior years.

Discussion touched on the senior (age 65+) exemption. A board member said she had "no desire to ever get rid of that," and staff clarified that the board does not have unilateral authority to remove the exemption and that removing it would require action by the county delegation or placement on a ballot.

After the presentation and a single public commenter, the board entered and then closed the public hearing by unanimous votes, then unanimously moved to adjourn. The presiding officer announced the board would "hang tight here for 14 minutes and start another meeting to vote on the millage rate," indicating a separate meeting would be held later the same day to take formal action.

There were no final millage votes recorded at this meeting.