The Oconee County Board of Education’s decision in June to hold hearings on its proposed 2.27 percent property tax increase without giving proper public notification has come back to haunt it.
Georgia Code is unambiguous in specifying that governing authorities can hold hearings on any planned tax increase no sooner than seven days after those hearings are advertised in the local legal organ so that citizens have a chance to offer comment.
In violation of the Code, the Board scheduled and held two of the three required hearings on its proposed tax increase on July 1, only four days after the announcement of the hearings appeared in the June 27 edition of The Oconee Enterprise.
Oconee County Schools Superintendent Jason Branch told the Board the issue was only “a technical reporting discrepancy,” but Georgia Department of Revenue officials said the hearings were in violation of state law.
The error was compounded when the Enterprise, in running a replacement advertisement in the Aug. 8 edition of the paper, mistakenly reduced the required size of the ad, rendering it in violation of Georgia Code.
Board Member Tim Burgess publicly ridiculed the paper at the Board’s Aug. 12 meeting for making that mistake, without making any reference to the Board’s own error in scheduling the initial hearings in violation of state law.
When co-publishers Amanda and Michael Prochaska showed up late in the meeting and attempted to explain what had happened with the replacement advertisement and to restate their apology for the error, they were prevented from doing so by Board Chair Kim Argo.
School officials and Oconee County Deputy sheriffs then physically removed the pair from the meeting room, and Oconee County Schools subsequently removed the comments of the pair from the video of that meeting.
Oconee County Tax Commissioner Jennifer Riddle finally was able to certify the millage rates for the county, including for the School Board, with the Georgia Department of Revenue on Aug. 29, a necessary step before she can mail out property tax bills for the county.
Final Tax Hearings
The Enterprise corrected its error from the Aug. 8 edition of the paper and ran the replacement advertisement in the correct size in its edition on Aug. 15.
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| Called Meeting 8/23/2024 |
The Board of Education held two replacement tax hearings, one at 10 a.m. and the other at 2 p.m., seven days later, on Aug. 23.
Three people spoke at those hearings, one of them twice. Following the second hearing, the Board once again adopted the millage rate of 14.25.
The posted minutes of the two hearings do not indicate which Board members were in attendance, but videos of the hearings shows that Vice Chair Amy Parrish did not attend the morning hearing on Aug. 23 and that Board Member Burgess did not attend either of the hearings or the special called meeting on that date at which the millage rate was set.
The Board did not need to redo its meeting from July 8 because, consistent with state law, it was held at 6 p.m. or later and it was held 11 days after publication of the advertisements in the June 27 edition of the Enterprise.
State law requires that the Board hold the three hearings because it did not reduce the millage rate to 13.934, as would have been necessary to offset the increase in the size of the tax digest due entirely to reassessments of existing property.
The state defines the difference between the 13.934 and the 14.25 as a 2.27 percent tax increase.
Oconee County Tax Commissioner Riddle and the Georgia Department of Revenue rejected the first two hearings on July 1 but accepted the third on July 8.
Branch Description Of Issue
At the Aug. 5 meeting of the Board of Education, when Superintendent Branch first announced the problem with the July 1 hearings, he said he wanted “to update the Board on a budget process item that came to our attention last week. The Georgia Department of Revenue notified us last week that we did have a technical reporting discrepancy regarding our July 1 millage hearings.”
“State law says that districts must advertise the hearing during the week prior in the newspaper,” Branch said. “We did do that. But since the Department of Revenue has stated to us that a week is defined as seven days plus one, and so we were not in compliance with that particular interpretation of the law.”
The “discrepancy” Branch referenced in fact had nothing to do with how a week is defined, since the July 1 hearing was only four days after the advertisement appeared in the Enterprise.
Georgia Code states:
“In those instances in which the recommending authority or levying authority proposes to establish a general maintenance and operation millage rate which would require increases beyond the roll-back rate, the recommending authority or levying authority shall advertise its intent to do so and shall conduct at least three public hearings thereon, at least one of which shall commence between the hours of 6:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M., inclusive, on a business weekday.”
“The recommending authority or levying authority shall place an advertisement in a newspaper of general circulation serving the residents of the unit of local government and post such advertisement on the website of the recommending or levying authority,” the law continues.
“The advertisement shall appear at least one week prior to each hearing, be prominently displayed, not less than 30 square inches, and not be placed in that section of the newspaper where legal notices appear and shall be posted on the appropriate website at least one week prior to each hearing,” the law states.
Subsequent Representation Of Error
Oconee County Schools Chief Financial Officer Peter Adams continued Branch’s representation of the problem regarding the July 1 hearings when he addressed the Board at both of the tax hearings on Aug. 23.
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| Afternoon Tax Hearing 8//23/2024 Adams Approaches Podium |
“We were notified by our Tax Commissioner and Department of Revenue that there was a technical reporting discrepancy regarding our July 1st hearings,” he said.
“The Department of Revenue reported that it did not meet their interpretation of the code section,” Adams said. “Their interpretation of the code section is a week is seven days plus one.”
No member of the Board questioned Branch’s or Adams’s explanation of the reason for the need to redo the tax hearings at any of the meetings where the two have discussed the problem.
Riddle And Department Of Revenue
According to email messages obtained through open records requests, Oconee County Tax Commissioner Riddle first became involved in a discussion with the Georgia Department of Revenue (DOR) about the problem with county tax hearings on July 31.
At 8:16 a.m. on Aug. 1, Riddle emailed Missy Dove, Compliance Specialist Supervisor, Local Government Services, DOR, saying “I got your message from yesterday.”
The message from the Department of Revenue noted problems with the advertising for the tax increase hearings both by the Board of Education and by the North High Shoals Council, Riddle’s email indicated.
Riddle informed Dove that “Unfortunately there isn’t additional advertising. I don’t know why I missed it.”
Dove wrote back to Riddle at 6:46 a.m. on Aug. 2, focusing on the Board of Education hearings and saying “Thank you for your patience for my delayed written response due travel. Per our conversation, unfortunately, the July 1st meetings which were listed in the June 27th newspaper publication were not advertised for one week prior to the scheduled hearings as outlined in O.C.G.A.48-5-32.1.” The reference is to Georgia Code.
“I have attached a copy of the Compliance Guide for Advertising Digest History and Public Hearings for review,” Dove wrote in that 6:46 a.m. message.
Dove copied Oconee County Schools Chief Financial Officer Adams on the message.
Adams’s Exchange
The email exchange makes it clear that the Oconee County School administration was well aware that the issue raised by Riddle and the Department of Revenue was the gap between the June 27 advertisement in the Enterprise and the two July 1 hearings and that the number of days in a week was not the issue.
At 9:13 a.m. on Aug. 2, Adams wrote to Riddle, saying “Oconee Enterprise published on their Social Media website on 6/24.” He also sent a screen shot of a posting on the Oconee County Schools web site dated June 24.
The July 1 hearings would have been seven days after the notice on June 24 only if June 24 itself were included. Seven days after the June 27 publication in the Enterprise would have been July 5, or the Friday after the July 4 holiday.
Kenny Colson, Assistant Director, Tax Oversight Local Government Services Division of the DOR, had written to Riddle, with a copy to Adams, at 7:47 a.m. on Aug. 2 saying “I have reviewed this and Missy is 100 percent accurate in rejecting the ad. UNLESS and UNTIL the legislature amends the statue to the contrary, We must use the paper edition date and count the required days rather than the electronic publication date.”
At 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 2, Riddle emailed Adams, saying “Good morning Peter, just wanted to make sure you saw the emails from Missy and Kenny this morning.”
“Being able to send the 2024 property tax bills is dependent on the approval letter from the DOR,” Riddle wrote. “The deadline for digest submission is 9/3/2024.”
Riddle was focused on the Board of Education hearings, not North High Shoals, telling Dove in an email on Aug. 6 that “I know DOR doesn’t monitor/approved their digest proceedings like the county and school.”
At 10:02 a.m on Aug, 2, Dove wrote to Adams saying “Per our phone conversation, there seems to be a difference of opinion on what constitutes a week. Our interpretation of a week is a period of seven consecutive days with business days being Monday-Friday.”
The email exchange indicates that Adams was in contact with people at DOR by telephone. The details of those conversations were not picked up in the open records requests.
Prochaska Apology
At the Aug. 12 meeting of the Board, Adams said “we were notified just a couple of hours ago by our Tax Commissioner Jennifer Riddle, after she contacted the Department of Revenue, that the ad for the August 16th hearings that was in The Oconee Enterprise, which is the county's legal organ, is not compliant with the Georgia Code of 30 square inches.”
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| Time Line From Compliance Guide |
“We reached out to The Oconee Enterprise to inquire about our ad and were informed that an employee of The Oconee Enterprise changed the ad size after the proof was approved by the publisher Michael Prochaska,” Adams said.
Board member Burgess then asked Adams: “Did you get any apology from the paper for them being unable to follow that simple instruction?”
“No sir,” Adams said. “No we did not.”
The email record shows that Amanda Prochaska had apologized to Oconee County Schools Communications Director Steven Colquitt for the error earlier that day.
Amanda and Michael Prochaska tried to correct Adams’s statement that the paper had not apologized and to clarify that Amanda Prochaska, not editor and co-publisher Michael Prochaska, had proofed the advertisement before the graphic designer mistakenly shrank it before publication.
They were informed by Argo that they were “out of order” and subsequently removed from the meeting room.
The pair did shout out their explanation of the paper’s error, but someone interrupted the livestream of the exchange after it started, and Oconee County Schools edited out the entire section of the meeting from the video it released of the meeting.
Oconee County Schools administrators sit in the audience at Board meetings, usually in the front row. A still image shot by Nathalee Simoneau from the Enterprise shows Colquitt in the audience when the Prochaskas were trying to speak.
School Board meetings are tightly choreographed by Branch, however, and employees address the Board only when called upon by Branch to do so. As a consequence, Colquitt would not have been in a position to correct Adams’s statement that the paper had not apologized for the error.
Comments At Tax Hearings
Pam Hendrix, who spoke at the tax hearings in July, was the only speaker at the morning replacement hearing on Aug. 23.
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| Morning Tax Hearing 8/23/2024 Hendrix Leaves Podium |
“Let me remind you,” she said after Adams had explained the need for the replacement hearing, “we wouldn't even have to be here if you weren't raising our property taxes.”
Hendrix then complained that the budget does not accurately reflect interest income the Board knows it will be receiving.
Ian Taylor, who also had spoken at the hearings in July, returned to this question when he was the first speaker at the afternoon session.
“I really don't see how we can ignore that investment income, especially if it could save the taxpayers a million dollars,” he said.
Laura King, who is running for Clerk of Probate Court on the November ballot, said she thinks enrollment in Oconee County Schools will decline in the future for a number of reasons, including declining fertility rates. King is running as a Democrat, but without party support.
Hendrix also spoke at the afternoon session and complained about the size of the reserves held by the Board and about its unwillingness to include a correct estimate of interest in the budget.
Millage Rates
Riddle, in certifying to the Department of Revenue the millage rates for the county, reported that only North High Shoals increased its millage rate, from .0854 in 2023 to 1.000 in 2024.
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| Click To Enlarge |
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners and the councils of Watkinsville, Bogartt, and Bishop cut their millage rates to offset the effects of inflation, meaning that they did not have tax increases.
The Board of Education reduced its millage rate from 15.00 to 14.25, but that decrease was not a full rollback to offset the effects of inflation, necessitating the tax hearings.
The millage rate the county sets for the incorporated parts of the county is higher than the rate for the unincorporated parts because of a tax rollback for insurance premiums that the county receives.
The county does not receive those revenues for the properties in the incorporated parts of the county.
The highest property taxes will be paid by property owners in Watkinsville, who pay the higher county rate, the school rate, and the 2.756 millage rate for the city itself. The total will be 22.38 mills.
The lowest millage rate will be paid by property owners who live in the unincorporated parts of the county. They will pay a millage rate of 4.435 for county services and 14.25 for Oconee County Schools, for a total of 18.685.
Based on the millage rates that Riddle certified for the Department of Revenue on Aug. 29, 76.3 percent of the property taxes that Oconee County residents pay in the unincorporated parts of the county goes to Oconee County Schools, up from 75.7 percent a year earlier.
Videos
The three videos from the Aug. 23 tax hearings and called meeting are on the YouTube Channel of Oconee County Schools.
Harold Thompson recorded the meetings for me as a backup, and the still images above are from his recording.
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