Savannah-Chatham board debates whether to opt into state’s HB 581 homestead exemption; leans toward keeping local Stevens Day law

Savannah-Chatham County Board of Public Education members spent more than an hour Feb. 5 discussing House Bill 581, a 2024 state law that creates a statewide “floating” homestead exemption and an optional local sales-tax mechanism, and whether the school district should opt into it or keep the county’s existing Stevens Day homestead exemption.

The conversation focused on technical differences between HB 581 and Stevens Day, operational burdens on local staff, and the uncertainty of pending state-level changes. Mr. Jackson, a district staff member who presented the board’s analysis, said that because Chatham County already has the Stevens Day exemption — enacted in 1998 and long used locally — the county and most municipalities are planning to opt out of HB 581. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said, summarizing the district’s preliminary view.

Why it matters: HB 581 would create a statewide mechanism meant to limit property-tax increases for homeowners by establishing a new base-year calculation and permitting a local option sales tax (FLOST) to offset property-tax revenue. Chatham County’s Stevens Day exemption already freezes a homeowner’s taxable base and has been the county’s primary protection against rapid assessment-driven tax increases for 25 years; board members said Stevens Day generally provides at least as much protection as HB 581 for most local homeowners.

Board members pressed presenters on several operational details: how the two exemptions calculate adjusted base values (HB 581 is expected to use a CPI-based adjustment similar to Stevens Day but with different CPI options), whether homeowners must apply to receive the benefit (they must file a homestead application under either regime), how the law treats properties larger than five acres (HB 581 treats properties larger than five acres differently), and whether the state will clarify outstanding points before the board’s final resolution deadline. The presenter told the board that the district’s modeling used a hypothetical house rising from $446,000 to $612,000 over 10 years and estimated that, under the currently understood HB 581 formula, an existing homeowner could pay about $9,574 more over a decade compared with certain Stevens Day assumptions; the presenter said the calculations were prepared locally and still need vetting by the tax commissioner’s office.

Several members asked the tax commissioner, Sonia Jackson, to brief the board and to vet the district’s calculations. Board member Sean Kachmar urged outside parties who can validate the state calculation to contact the board: “So if that person exists and you're listening, please contact us and please keep trying to find people that would be a second eye to say yes, this is correct,” he said.

Board members repeatedly cited implementation risk and administrative burden as reasons to consider opting out. The presenter said opting into HB 581 would require substantial staff time to prepare calculations and could complicate the exemption process. Board members also noted that the law’s March 1 deadline for jurisdictions to submit a resolution creates a tight window: the presenter said the county and municipalities had scheduled public hearings (the first and second hearings the next day and a third in February) and that a resolution vote for the district is scheduled for Feb. 19, with state law currently requiring the signed resolution be received by March 1.

Members also raised the point that HB 581 includes different treatment for properties larger than five acres; district staff estimated roughly 75 properties in the county may fall into that category, and noted that any exemption under HB 581 would apply only to the first five acres for qualifying large parcels. Members cautioned that the primary difference in local impact could be limited to that small subset of properties.

On procedure and next steps the board heard that: the district will continue public hearings as scheduled; staff will seek a vetting presentation from the tax commissioner’s office; the board will proceed toward the Feb. 19 resolution vote unless definitive, official guidance from the state emerges; and the board may adjust timing if the legislature officially extends the submission deadline to May 1.

No formal action on HB 581 was taken at the Feb. 5 informal meeting. The board did accept a motion to go into executive session at the end of the recorded transcript; the motion was seconded and approved by a voice vote (mover and seconder not named in the transcript).