MOULTRIE — Residents may get some property tax relief in the near future if Gov. Brian Kemp signs Senate Bill 44 and the Colquitt County School Board takes advantage of the provisions of the bill. The bill passed both houses of the Georgia General Assembly and is on its way to the governor’s desk.

Senate Bill 44, sponsored by Sen. Sam Watson, R-Moultrie, lowers the required millage rate for board of educations from 14 mills to 10 mills. Therefore, school boards are still eligible for State Equalization Grants if they opt to decrease their millage rate.

Jeremy Jones, chief financial officer for the Colquitt County School System, defined the State Equalization Grants. They are additional funds provided by the state to narrow the gap between systems in terms of property tax wealth per pupil. The reasoning behind them is to equalize educational opportunities across school districts.

“We put a lot of work in this bill over the last two years,” said Rep. Chas Cannon, R-Moultrie, who presented the bill on the House floor.

He said in an earlier interview, since property assessments had gone up all over the state last year, it had become an important issue. Lowering the school’s minimum millage rate can accommodate for higher property values and help reduce property taxes, he said.

Both Cannon and Watson sponsored bills to take up the legislation again and try to get it through this year’s session. SB 44 is the bill that made it.

When Watson presented the bill in a House subcommittee meeting, he said that the bill had the same verbiage as the one Cannon had sponsored. He said many people had wanted to get it passed last year but they had just run out of time.

“This allows them (school systems) to lower the millage rate, give money back to the tax-payers and not get in trouble with the state and risk losing their Equalization,” Watson said. “One of my counties is at the 14 mill rate and they would love to go below that to give that money back to the taxpayers but they can’t.”

For more information, visit the House of Representatives’ website at https://www.legis.ga.gov/house and the Senates’ website at https://www.legis.ga.gov/senate.