Is Greenville County Raising Taxes?
Last month, we discussed opportunities for proactive outreach to your elected representatives to help guide the growth you want to see in our community. One of the big ways our local representatives guide our county is by setting the budget. Greenville County is looking at a tax increase for the first time in nearly three decades. The increase is being discussed at this month's County Council meetings, starting with the meeting on June 6.
This brings up the question, how are taxes assessed, and what does that mean for you?
If you are not interested in this, here's your opportunity to scroll to the bottom to get to the action items. I will take more time than usual here because the details are essential to understand. The County budgets run for one year at a time, from July to June next year. The county prepares two years' worth of budgets at a time, so the two budgets being discussed are the 2023-2024 Budget and the 2024-2025 Budget. Most of the revenue for the County's operating expense comes from property taxes, which is a tax levied against different types of property within the county's borders.
When we start talking about property taxes, the concept of a millage rate inevitably comes into play. But what is a millage rate? A millage rate is like a percentage, but instead of being out of 100, it's out of 1,000. If the millage rate is 10 mills, that means for every $1,000 a property is worth, the owner has to pay $10 in taxes.
So the millage rate determines one factor in the equation. The other factor is the value of the property itself. However, by the state constitution, different types of property are assessed at different rates, meaning only a portion of the total value of the property is considered "taxable".
4% for owner-occupied homes
6% for commercial property and non-primary residences
10.5% for manufacturing property
So to make this easy, let's talk about an owner-occupied home worth $300,000 in what's called Tax District 276 (this is the Tax District for most of Taylors). I can go to the Greenville County Auditor's website and look at the 2022 millage rates and see that the total millage levied on my property is 336.8. So to figure out my taxes, that means:
First, I take 4% of $300,000 = $12,000.
Next, I take that $12,000 divided by 1,000, which gives me $12.
Next, I take the $12 multiplied by the mileage rate, which for Tax District 276 is 336.8, and I get $4,041.60, which is my total taxes before adjustments are made.
In South Carolina, a large portion of the millage levied by the School District is given back on owner-occupied homes as a tax credit. In this case, it's a roughly $1,700 credit (it's more complicated than this, but for our conversation, we will go with it). So I would pay taxes closer to $2,300 for that residence.
So the number in question here is 336.8, which is the millage rate for the tax district where this home is located. What makes up that number?
198.7 mills is for the School District (a separate entity from the rest of the Greenville County government).
74.5 mills is for the Taylors Fire District
0.4 mills is for the Bon Secours Wellness Arena
63.2 mills is the "County" tax
That gets us to 336.8 mills in total. Looking at the County Tax, what makes up that 63.2 mills? That 63.2 has additional millage for the art museum, Greenville Tech, Library, and County Operations. That last bit of County Operations is the 48.4 mills we're interested in.
Looking at the budget document here, on pages 16 and 22, the actual millage rate proposed for the next 2 years is 59.4 mills or an increase of 11 mills. So back to our example, if we run through all my math again, that gives a total tax of $4,173.60, up to $132 from $4,041.60 in the previous year.
So, the question becomes, why is Greenville County proposing this millage rate increase right now? Looking at the math, you can see that as property values increase, the amount of money the county taxes in taxes should also increase since one of the factors in the formula is the value of my property.
Looking at page 3 of the budget presentation, you can see this chart that tells what appears to be a large part of the story:
CPI, better known as the consumer price index, is a representation of how much things cost. That lovely spike in 2022 is the inflation we've all felt. I like this chart because you can see the difference between the average cost of items and the county's growth by population.
Greenville County's projected expenditures for the first year of this proposed budget cycle are $234,590,065. That's a lot of money, but due to inflation, the increase in costs over these past couple of years has caught up and surpassed the average "revenue growth" that the rise in population and home values typically affords, hence what appears to me to be the majority of the difference.
All the start of the budget process, County Council articulates priorities for the County Administrator to build this budget around. You can see below from slide 10 in the budget presentation the top 5 priorities Council gave the Administrator in creating the budget.
Within the County's overall budget are several funds. The fund that impacts our millage increase discussion the most is the General Fund, which, as the name implies, is the account where most of the County's discretionary spending comes from. The County reports that 83% of General Fund expenditures are employees' salaries, and public safety salaries (EMS, Detention Workers, and the Sheriff's Office) make up 61% of those salaries. That's a lot of money, but according to the Administrator, "Greenville County, the most populous County in the State of South Carolina, ranks sixth from the bottom in full-time employees per 1,000 residents when compared to the other 46 counties."
So what should you do with all this information? This is our moment to examine the above-articulated priorities and count their cost. I'm not here to say one way or another how you should feel about a tax increase. Generally, people want lower taxes. My main point is this: It's crucial to recognize trade-offs on either side of the equation. I look at that list of priorities, and I like a lot of those things. But we also have to count their cost.
This is a moment to let your elected representatives know if you also like those things. If you don't that's fine, but articulating a positive vision of what you want your community to look like is vital. Contact your Council representativesand tell them what you want your community to look like.
You can also read some recent coverage about the potential budget from Greenville Journal and the Post & Courier.
