Thank you, Mayor Recording.

Welcome everybody.

Today's purpose is for us to have a public hearing about the setting of the millage rate.

And what our finance director would like to come forward.

Thank you.

Good morning.

And first off, welcome.

I think this is your first millage rate.

Yes, it is.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

So this is the first of three public hearings that we will be holding on the 2026 millage rate.

We are required to advertise and hold these three meetings based on the preliminary digest that we typically receive from Fulton County by this time of the year.

However, this year we have not yet received the detailed preliminary digest, hence the numbers that you will see on later slides in this presentation are estimates.

So this slide here lays the foundation for everything that follows.

So Fulton County, not the city, is responsible for assessing the value of all real and personal property in Johns Creek.

That assessed value is set at 40% of fair market value, and the sum of all assessed values citywide is what we call the tax digest.

The digest grows in two distinct ways each year.

Reassessment, which for residential property is capped by state law at a maximum increase of 3% per year, and growth, which comes from new homes and new businesses being added to the tax digest.

The county and school board set their own rates separately.

And by state law, Fulton County must submit all of the county's millage rates, including ours, to the Department of Revenue by September 1, which is part of why this hearing process is on this particular timeline that we have.

This slide here explains how millage actually translates into a tax bill.

Three separate taxing jurisdictions levy millage against the same tax digest, the school board, the county, and the city.

Each sets its own rate independently.

Just as an example, that's 200,000 divided by 1,000 times 5, which gives you 1,000 in property taxes.

And this is just an illustrative example.

Our actual combined rate is shown on the next slide.

Now this slide here shows exactly how the tax, the total tax bill breaks down.

And as you see on the pie chart, the city's portion is the smallest slice of the pie.

School millage is 17.080, by far the largest component.

County is at 8.870.

County bond is 0.169.

The city MNO, which is your maintenance and operations, is 3.492, and the city bond is at 0.250.

Added together, the total overall 2025 millage rate paid by a Johns Creek property owner was 29.861 mills.

And as you can see, uh Johns Creek rate, which is right in the middle in that light blue color, uh, is 3.492, which is the lowest.

This chart here shows Johns Creek's own historical MNO millage rate from 2006 through the chart layers two things together, which is the city's historical property tax levy, which is the actual dollars collected, which is shown in those blue bars, and then the millage rate, which is shown right above that in the green line from 2007 through 2025.

So property tax revenue makes up approximately 27% of the general fund revenue base, so it's a significant funding source for the city.

This revenue funds core city services and priorities, public safety, meaning our police and fire departments, as well as general administration.

It also supports capital projects and enhancements, council identified strategic priorities and the adopted capital plan.

Property tax directly funds the services residents rely on every day.

Hence the digest numbers represented on this slide are estimates based on prior years.

Our overall net tax digest is estimated to be at 6.58 billion dollars.

This is an estimated increase of 190 million or 2.1%, 15% since 2025.

And of the 190 million increase, the increase from reassessment is estimated at 158 million, and the increase from new growth is estimated at 32 million.

So here this is the advertised MNO millage rate, uh the maintenance and operation rate that funds the day to day city operations separate from the bond rate.

The rate is 3.492 MILS, which is the same as the 2025 adopted slash current rate.

So right now, as per what we advertise, there is no proposed increase to this rate, and that equals 3.492 per thousand dollars of assessed value.

The advertised rate of 3.492 mils is the maximum the city council can adopt without having to re-advertise and restart this uh public hearing process.

Uh this slide here introduces uh the rollback rate concept, which is required under Georgia law whenever the tax digest grows from reassessment.

Because uh the city received the 2026 preliminary gross tax digest total, which does not yet include exemptions.

Uh staff had to estimate the exemptions uh based on prior years to calculate the estimated rollback rate.

And the estimated rollback rate for MNO is 3.470 mils.

That's $3.47 per thousand dollars of assessed value for a property.

So you can know you can see that this is slightly lower than the advertised um rate of 3.492 mils since the digest has grown, meaning it would take a slightly lower rate to collect the same total revenue as uh last year.

Uh this slide covers the second component of the millage rate, which is the parks bond millage, uh, which is separate from our maintenance and operations, which is the MNO, and this is dedicated solely to covering the annual debt service payment on our parks bond.

So the recommend the 2026 rate is at uh 0.250 mils, which is the same as the 2025 adopted rate of 0.250 per thousand dollars of SS value.

Uh this is the amount necessary to cover the annual debt payment.

Uh it isn't a discretionary rate the way the MNO can be.

Also of note, the 2026 estimated rollback rate for the bond is 0.248 mils, uh, which is or 0.248 per thousand dollars.