(Last Updated On: June 28, 2023)
The Coweta County Board of Education gave final approval to a Coweta County School System operational budget of $276,373,942 for the 2023-2024 fiscal year (FY 2024), at a called meeting on Tuesday, June 27.
Tuesday’s vote was the second of two formal votes on the new year’s budget, as required by state law. It follows budget workshops held by the school board in May, and tentative approval of the budget on June 13. The new budget will take effect for the school system’s new fiscal year beginning July 1.
The Board’s adoption of the FY 2024 budget does not set this year’s local property tax rate. The ad valorem millage rate for school system maintenance and operations is set by the board usually in late July, following the establishment of a current local property tax digest by the Coweta County Tax Assessor’s office.
The budget adopted Tuesday is based on local and state estimates, and does not project an increase over the local school property tax rate of 16.00 mills set in July, 2022. When it meets to set the actual 2023 school millage rate, the Board of Education could also adjust tax rates for school operations based on the final property tax digest, once that new digest is received from the tax assessor’s office.
In response to recent increases in local property values, the Coweta County Board of Education has decreased the school system’s ad valorem millage rate in each of the past three years. The 16.00 mill property tax rate set in 2022 was a decrease from 17.14 mills in 2021, down from 17.30 mills in 2020, and down from 18.59 mills maintained for several years before.
In addition to these tax rate decreases, the school board also expanded senior citizen tax exemptions through local referendum in 2020. These decreases have left the Coweta County School System with one of the lowest school system tax rates in the metro Atlanta and West Georgia region, and the lowest…
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