The City of Marietta will hold three public hearings on its millage rate.

Depending on how you frame it, Marietta will be implementing a tax decrease (the millage rate is going down) or an increase (the total tax digest is rising due to property value reassessments).

The city is not increasing the millage rate, which will decrease from from 4.992 mills to 4.817 mills, but since the total tax digest will increase for the year due to increase in property values, under state law a tax increase has to be advertised, and three public hearings are required.

Marietta’s hearings will be held at Marietta City Hall, 205 Lawrence Street, Marietta, Georgia in the Council Chamber on July 19, 2022, at 9:00 am and 6:00 pm and on July 26, 2022 at 9:00 am.

The announcement on the Marietta website describes the purpose of the hearings as follows:

MARIETTA – The Marietta City Council announces its intention to increase the property taxes it will levy this year by 8.99 percent over the rollback millage rate by levying the General Fund tax rates the same as last year. The overall millage rate for property owners in the City of Marietta will decrease so that property owners will pay less in property taxes this year than last year unless their property is commercial or industrial and was reassessed by Cobb County.

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The budget tentatively adopted by the Marietta City Council contains a General Fund millage rate which differs from the rollback millage rate; therefore, before the Marietta City Council may finalize the tentative budget and set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the General Fund.

According to Georgia law, all taxing agencies must advertise a tax increase and hold three public hearings to claim taxes on reassessed properties even if the millage rate remains unchanged as is the case in Marietta. The current General Fund millage rate has remained the same for the last 19 years.

All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at Marietta City Hall, 205 Lawrence Street, Marietta, Georgia in the Council Chamber on July 19, 2022, at 9:00 am and 6:00 pm and on July 26, 2022 at 9:00 am.

For more information about the City’s budgeting process please view our press release announcing that City Council adopted a balanced budget on June 8, 2022 without raising taxes or establishing new fees, included no service reductions, but did include a property tax decrease.

About the City of Marietta

The City of Marietta is the county seat of Cobb County. The latest estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau puts the population of the city at 60,867 which makes it the largest city in Cobb County by population.

However, the city is in a neck-and-neck race with fast-growing Smyrna, whose population was 56,666 at the last estimate.

Here are a few fast facts from the Census Bureau