2025-05-01 May 01, 2025 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - FINAL
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May 01, 2025 6:00 PM City of Smyrna Mayor and Council Meeting 2800 King Street SE Human Resources Training Room Page 5 of 8 •June 2 Formal budget adoption at Council meeting 4. Review of Current M&C Agenda A. COW2025-053 Review of the May 5, 2025 Mayor and Council Meeting Notice and Agenda ATH2025-075: Kristin Robinson, Deputy City Administrator/CFO, provided the following information: HB 581, also known as the "Save Our Homes Act" in Georgia, was approved and signed into law during the 2024 Regular Session and is a bill that aimed to provide property tax relief to homeowners by implementing a statewide homestead exemption. The City opted out of new homestead because the City’s current floating homestead exemption was more advantageous to the taxpayer. All required hearings were held and the opt out was filed by the deadline. A provision of this bill was that the local governments had to provide an estimated rollback rate to the County Tax Commissioner by March 31 to be placed on tax assessment notices. Finance and Administration, in consultation with legal, provided the anticipated millage rate of 8.99 mills to the County to be included on assessment notices. During the 2025 Regular Session, HB 92 made several modifications to the previously HB 581 to clarify several key areas. One of those was to require a formal vote by the governing authority to certify the Estimated Rollback Rate for the tax assessment notices. This item will provide the formal certification as required. ATH2025-077: Paul Osburn, Deputy Public Works Director, provided the following background: This request is based off an already approved stormwater project by mayor and council that was approved on 8.26.24. In an amount not to exceed $384,840.00. However, due to unforeseen utility issues with Atlanta Gas Light we were required to meet certain depth / coverage requirements by them which required the city to expand our scope slightly to achieve those requirements. In return caused need for a change order in an amount not to exceed $111,730.00 to be funded from 2025 stormwater. ATH2025-079: Richard Garland, Community Services Administrator, provided the following background: The department has a need for dedicated staff to provide promotions and social media. We have used this receptionist position for this need previously and as it is currently open, we would like to reclassify. Discussion took place regarding Community Relations and other departments’ social media/public relations communications. Mayor Norton announced that he will not be present at the Mayor and Council meeting on Monday, May 5, 2025 due to travel; Councilmember Welch will also be traveling and not be present at the meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Tim Gould will run the meeting. Paul Osburn spoke about StillFire Brewery and their need to shutdown Powder Springs at Atlanta Road. between May 19 through May 23 in order to install the new sanitary sewer service. Signage will go up next week as well as communications from the City to the public. Mayor and Council asked that the detours be as easy as possible to navigate and understand so as not to inconvenience residents. 5. Other Business / Staff Comment