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Johns Creek holds main millage at 3.646 mills and sets park-bond rate at 0.25
Summary
After extended public comment and staff presentations, the Johns Creek City Council voted July 29 to hold the city's FY2024 maintenance-and-operations millage at 3.646 mills and to set the park-bond millage at 0.25 mills per $1,000; the votes followed debate about reserves, bond capacity and long-term capital funding.
The Johns Creek City Council voted July 29 to keep the city's maintenance-and-operations millage at 3.646 mills and to set the park-bond millage at 0.25 mills per $1,000 of assessed value.
Finance Director George Campbell laid out the mechanics behind the choices during the third public hearing on the FY2024 millage rate, explaining that the advertised 3.646 rate would yield roughly the revenue staff had projected while the rollback rate (3.516) would have produced a roughly $500,000 reduction in property-tax revenue against the adopted budget assumptions. "If you adopt and hold the millage steady, you will be slightly above your revenue projection for property tax; if you adopt a rollback rate, you will be below," Campbell said in the presentation.
During the hearing, several residents and business owners spoke. Royce Reinicki urged the council to adopt the rollback rate and use a lower permanent millage by financing long-lived capital projects with bonds rather than current revenue. "When you look at your millage rate, you may want to start thinking about how you fund capital projects with bonds," Reinicki said, arguing that spreading costs over time would be fairer to future residents.
Council members debated trade-offs between short-term tax relief and preserving reserves and bond capacity. Some members expressed concern that taking a rollback this year would erode the city's general-fund reserves and could affect the city's bond rating; staff told council that credit-rating agencies review unassigned fund balances and millage stability when assessing ratings.
On the park bond, Council member Coughlin moved to set the park-bond millage at 0.25 mills per $1,000, which staff said would be adequate to service the anticipated annual debt service of about $2.1 million. That motion passed. Later, a motion to hold the main millage at 3.646 mills was made and seconded; council approved it after brief discussion about legal advertisement and future options.
The council recorded the decisions on the record and closed the public hearing. The council's action preserves the city's revenue assumptions for the current year while directing staff to proceed on related budget and capital planning work.
What happens next: the FY2025 budget process is continuing; staff said they will reforecast revenue projections for next year based on the adopted millage and return to council with the next steps and the second public hearing for the FY2025 budget in September.
