Clayton County holds public hearing on HB 581; no decision reached on opting out

The Clayton County Board of Commissioners held a special-called public hearing on Feb. 18 to review House Bill 581, a 2024 state measure that creates a floating homestead exemption tied to inflation, authorizes a new five-year floating local option sales tax (FLOST) for jurisdictions that remain in the homestead program, and changes how certain rollback and assessment calculations are handled. County financial staff presented projected revenue impacts and residents — many of them seniors on fixed incomes — urged the board to opt out.

Why it matters: HB 581 changes how assessors treat homestead properties (limiting assessed-value increases to the prior year’s inflation for qualifying homes) while offering counties and cities a new sales-tax tool that could be used to replace property tax revenue dollar-for-dollar. Opting out requires a formal local decision, three public hearings and a resolution filed with the secretary of state by the March statutory deadline; the county made no opt-out decision at the hearing.

County presentations and staff analysis Ed Wall, the county’s financial adviser, told the board "House bill 5 81 does 3 things": (1) create a floating homestead exemption tied to inflation, (2) create a floating local option sales tax available only to jurisdictions that remain in the floating homestead exemption, and (3) simplify some rollback/levy calculations. He said the constitutional amendment enabling the change was on the November 2024 ballot and passed statewide, and that HB 581 took effect Jan. 1, 2025. Wall said 535 cities, 80 school systems and 59 counties were automatically opted in statewide unless they opt out locally by the March deadline and three public hearings.

Stacy Merritt, the county’s finance officer, described county budget goals and warned that adopting HB 581 could reduce property-tax growth from homesteaded residential properties. Merritt said staff reduced the state-level analysis into county-specific projections and noted the figures presented covered only residential homesteaded digest impacts and did not include commercial digest growth (commercial property is not affected by the homestead change). She reiterated that county…