Athens-Clarke County holds final public hearing on whether to opt out of House Bill 581

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Education held its third and final public hearing on House Bill 581 on a matter the district said could reduce local school revenue by roughly $1 million to $2 million a year, depending on state guidance and tax digest growth. The board is scheduled to consider a resolution next Thursday; if it votes to opt out, supporting paperwork must be filed with the Georgia Secretary of State by March 1.

The hearing featured a presentation by Chris Griner, chief financial officer for the Clarke County School District, who outlined how HB 581 creates a statewide floating homestead exemption that limits annual increases in assessed value for owner-occupied homesteads to the prior year’s inflation rate. Griner summarized impacts on the district’s FY2026 budget and offered an illustrative example: with an assumed 8% increase in the tax digest and a 3% inflation cap under HB 581, a home with a 2024 assessed value of $300,000 would face a roughly $113 difference in school tax liability next year depending on the board’s choice; in Griner’s example the district’s millage of 18.8 mills produced the figures cited.

Griner also noted local exemptions that reduce the pool of affected homesteads: an age-65 school-only homestead exemption (referred to in the presentation as exemption SC) freezes the assessed school value for qualifying seniors and therefore would not be subject to HB 581’s annual inflation cap. Griner said roughly half of homesteaded parcels in Athens-Clarke County are effectively shielded from the new law by that exemption. He said other existing local exemptions would not…