By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 9, 2021 | It is somewhat surprising to find that the City of Lawrenceville is raising taxes. This once-staid conservative government is going to raise ad valorem taxes this year by 0.4 mills. Not only that, the city is also going to start charging its first garbage fee, which will be $10 per month for 2022, and in 2023, will be $20 a month. Previously, there was no fee for garbage service.
Up until this year, Lawrenceville had the lowest millage rate in the county among its bigger cities, a mark of 1.88 mills.
For 2022, Berkeley Lake will have the lowest millage rate of 1.746 mills, while Grayson will be next lowest, at 1.985 mills. (See accompanying table of the city 2022 budgets and millage.)
However, there are three cities in the county that have no tax on real property: Braselton, Buford and Peachtree Corners. Buford, however, operates its own city school system, and for that levies an ad valorem tax of 12.6 mills.
Buford also has the highest anticipated budget of all the cities, $167 million. Included in that figure are funds coming in from its electrical and gas distribution enterprise funds. Lawrenceville has the second largest anticipated budget for 2022, of $147 million, which also includes revenue from its electrical and gas system.
Lawrenceville Mayor David Still, who became the mayor at the start of 2020, and was previously on the City Council. “We have seen several areas of development projects come together recently, some of them dating back to 2003. That would include our new college corridor, the Lawrenceville Lawn, and the Performing Arts Center, which we anticipate will open in October, 2021. Then there’s the School of the Arts on the Central Gwinnett campus, working on the Hooper Renick Library which will have a portion of the building devoted to a museum; and a new stage and an amphitheatre as part of the lawn project. We’ve really had a lot of new activity going on in Lawrenceville.”
While Lawrenceville’s overall 2022 budget is $147 million, the same as in 2021, it does not include water department revenues, since the city sold its water department to the county last year. The 2021 budget also included several capital projects, not in the 2022 budget.
On the county-wide front, the Gwinnett County Commission is anticipating keeping its ad valorem (property) rate at a rollback rate of 6.95, similar to last year. The Commission will hold three public hearings concerning the rate for residents to make comments. The first hearing will be held Monday, July 12 at 9 a.m. while the second and third hearings are scheduled for Monday, July 19 at 9:30 a.m. and at 6:30 p.m. The three hearings will take place in the auditorium of the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center, located at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville. The millage rate adoption is scheduled to take place Tuesday, July 20 at 2 p.m.
Then the Gwinnett School Board is considering adopting a combined millage rate of 21.60, a rate unchanged from Fiscal Year 2021. The maintenance and operation millage is recommended to remain at 19.70 mills and the debt-service rate is recommended to remain unchanged at 1.90. This will result in the total recommended millage rate of 21.60 mills.
The Gwinnett County School Board will hold three public hearings as part of its process for setting the millage rate. The first hearing was held on July 8. The second and third public hearings will take place on July 15 at 11:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. The Board of Education adopted the Fiscal Year2022 budget in the expenditure amount of $2,352,649,340 on April 15, 2021.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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