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Chatham County commissioners decline to opt out of state homestead changes, say software will pick biggest saving for homeowners
Summary
After a public hearing with two speakers, the Chatham County Board of Commissioners voted to take no action on whether to opt out of House Bill 581, leaving the county "automatically in" and relying on assessor software to apply whichever exemption yields the larger tax savings each year.
The Chatham County Board of Commissioners voted Thursday to take no action on whether to opt out of House Bill 581, the statewide homestead exemption measure, leaving the county subject to the state law while preserving the county's existing Stevens Day local exemption.
The decision follows a public hearing in which two residents urged different outcomes and where county officials and the county attorney described how the two exemptions would be applied.
The move matters because it determines whether Chatham County homeowners will be covered by the statewide exemption set by referendum and how that law interacts with the county's long-standing local homestead exemption known as Stevens Day. County officials said assessor software will compute each year which exemption delivers the larger tax benefit to each homeowner and apply that exemption…
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