The legal advertisement says a portion of Paulding County property tax is rising 193 percent, but state requirements for advertising millage rates make that number misleading, say county officials.

The notice of property tax increase applies only to the bond (debt service) portion of county taxes for fiscal year 2010, which began in July. Counting the separate Board of Education tax millage rate — which school officials have announced they don’t intend to change — the county government’s bond millage rate applies to only 5 percent of county taxes.

The advertised millage rate for bonded indebtedness is increasing from 0.5 mills to 1.6 mills, and the Board of Commissioners will have public hearings on the rate at its meetings at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. July 28 and 10 a.m. Aug. 11.

The board and county staff also have scheduled an open town hall meeting in the cafeteria at Watson Government Complex for 6 p.m. Thursday, July 16, to discuss the budget, on which the commission is expected to vote Aug. 11.

The county millage rate for maintenance and operations (M&O) is also rising, from 6.5 mills to 6.9 mills, but the 0.4 percent increase will bring in less revenue than FY09 because of a 5.7 percent drop in the tax digest. The gross digest — there are different exemptions for M&O/fire and bond — has fallen from $4,586,936,931 in FY08 to $4,327,569,651 even with new construction because property reassessments have dropped an average of 11 percent. Reassessments lowered the gross county tax digest — the total value of property in Paulding — by $259,367,280.

If just the M&O millage rate was rising, the county wouldn’t have to advertise a tax increase as required under the Georgia Taxpayers Bill of Rights adopted in 1999 because the higher rate still would have produced less revenue than in the previous fiscal year.

Bringing in the same revenue for bond payment with a lower tax digest would have required raising the bond millage rate from 0.5 mill to 0.546 mill, which wouldn’t have required advertising and public hearings.

Raising the rate from 0.546 mills to 1.6 mills equals a 193 percent increase.