Hall County to advertise public hearings on whether to opt out of new statewide homestead cap

Hall County commissioners agreed to begin the formal process of deciding whether the county should opt out of a new statewide homestead-assessment cap provided in House Bill 581, county staff said.

Zach Probs, a county staff member leading the presentation, told the board that Hall County now has two homestead exemptions in play: a local floating homestead exemption enacted by House Bill 1268 (base year 2023, caps reassessments for qualifying homesteads at 3%) and a statewide exemption in House Bill 581 (base year 2024, cap tied to an inflation factor). He said the laws use different base years and different cap mechanisms, which will require parcel-by-parcel reconciliation by the tax assessor’s and tax commissioner’s offices to ensure each taxpayer receives the most beneficial exemption in a given year.

Probs described the administrative work ahead: “the software would have to be rewritten and there would have to be a script made to calculate on an individual parcel basis, every parcel that’s in the homestead exemption,” and the exercise will require coordination between the assessor and tax commissioner for review and reconciliation, he said.

The base-year difference matters for taxpayers. Probs offered an illustrative example showing a property that would be more favorably treated under the local 3% cap because it resets to a 2023 base year; using the local approach in that example reduced the county portion of the tax bill by roughly $40 for the coming season. He also noted the statewide formula would use an inflationary factor (the Department of Revenue proposed the CPI-U annual average), which the department planned to announce by January 31.

Probs told commissioners that state law allows a governing authority to opt out of the statewide option but requires a public process: advertise three public notices/hearings and adopt a resolution filed with the Secretary of State by March 1, 2025. He recommended the county publish a first notice on Jan. 29, hold the first hearing at the Feb. 13 voting meeting, a second at the Feb. 24 work session, and the third hearing and potential adoption at the Feb. 27 voting meeting. Commissioners agreed to move forward with advertising so the county can meet the deadlines while acknowledging that pending state action could extend or change the schedule.

Probs and commissioners repeatedly stressed that the decision after the three hearings would be final (an opt-out is not reversible at the county level without new legislation) and that the county cannot yet quantify all additional administrative costs. “I cannot honestly speak to that at this time,” Probs said when asked about dollar amounts for added staff or software changes.

Next steps: the board authorized advertising the required notices and scheduling the three hearings; the vote on whether to opt out is expected after the third public hearing on Feb. 27, 2025.