Royston approved a property-tax rollback, but taxpayers still cannot see the rate

Royston’s Mayor and Council unanimously approved a FY 2025 property-tax millage-rate rollback in November 2024, adopting the measure after City Manager Lainer Dunn said it would keep reassessments from producing a tax increase. The vote was final: the minutes record a motion, a second and a 6-0 passage. But the same minutes do not identify the numerical millage rate council approved, leaving residents without the central figure needed to assess the decision.

The omission matters because a millage rate is a key part of a property-tax bill. A lower rate can offset an increase in assessed value, but the effect depends on both the adopted rate and an individual property’s assessment. Without the FY 2025 figure or the preceding year’s rate in the council record, taxpayers cannot make a numerical comparison, calculate a particular bill from the approval, or determine how closely the rollback offset reassessment-driven growth.

The action followed a planning process that began publicly in October 2024. Staff told council then that it was preparing millage-adoption forms and recommending a rollback rate with no tax increase for the budget, subject to required advertising and November consideration. The city subsequently scheduled a Nov. 12 public hearing on the proposed FY 2025 rate. After that proposal and hearing process, council accepted the rollback in November rather than leaving it as a staff recommendation.

Dunn framed the rollback as a way to avoid raising taxes because of reassessments while still allowing the city’s property-tax digest to generate revenue growth. Staff had advanced the same no-tax-increase approach in October, and every council member present for the recorded vote supported it. Property owners have the most direct financial stake, since their eventual bills turn on their assessed values as well as the rate; the records do not document resident testimony, a competing proposal or a numerical claim about what any taxpayer would save or pay.

What is settled is the council’s approval of a rollback, not merely a proposal. What remains unclear is its precise implementation: the November minutes do not state the adopted rate or rates, the prior-year rate, or projected revenue growth. Dunn’s description establishes the city’s intended policy effect, but it does not prove that every owner’s tax bill stayed flat or declined. The minutes said bills were to be mailed Dec. 12, 2024, and due Feb. 12, 2025; they do not establish from this record the rate ultimately printed on those bills.

The next useful public confirmation would be a city rate-adoption document or FY 2025 tax-billing record that states the millage rate actually used. That would allow residents to compare it with the earlier rate and, alongside their own assessments, understand the effect on their taxes. Until then, Royston’s completed rollback vote stands, but the most basic numerical question—how far the city rolled the rate back—remains unanswered in the published meeting minutes.