The majority of voters chose to keep the long-standing property tax-assessment freeze when they cast their ballots on November 8, 2016. The outcome was 62.25 percent to 37.75 percent according to official results from the Muscogee County election summary report.
The property freeze is an ad valorem tax levied on a homeowner’s property at the time the property is purchased. Basically, citizens who buy a home in Columbus pay the same amount of taxes for that property annually without being subjected to rises in inflation and aggressive property appraisals. A “thawing” of the freeze, as it’s been commonly referred to during campaigns, was propositioned in 1992 and again in 2003 after some feared the legislation was hurting the city.
For Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, long at the forefront of the Thaw the Freeze campaign, the result was a blow. “Certainly, we are disappointed with the outcome of the Thaw the Freeze vote,” she said. “We did double the number of voters that thought relief from the current tax system was a good idea but fell far short of actually instituting a new, better tax system.”
Tomlinson also expressed that the current freeze system is “not sustainable,” and stated that the system “will eventually fall of its own weight because the burden it places on new homeowners won’t be tolerated by future generations.”
Under the freeze, new homeowners must subsidize potentially lost property tax revenue by paying a sixteen percent premium on their property taxes for the first fourteen years that they own their homes. This lost revenue heavily affects the spending limit of the city and consequently limits goods and services available to its citizens, argue freeze opponents.
“The Freeze system will continue to be a limitation on our growth and competitiveness. We will have to make up the difference in other ways and be quite innovative in how we do that,” Tomlinson said of the goods and services. “We will continue to be prudent with city spending, which means a lesser service level than the citizens demand, but we do seem to find ways to pull “rabbits out of hats” at the city, and we will continue to need to do so.” The city worked closely with Columbus State’s Butler Center for Business and Economic Research to analyze the long-term effects of the freeze on revenue. CSU found that over the last decade, Columbus lost about an entire year’s worth of tax revenue.
While some opponents are upset about the outcome, many advocates of the freeze claim that the current system is equitable and gives homeowners peace of mind. “A market value system is nothing new or progressive,” says supporter of the freeze Mary Sue Polleys, who has been an advocate of the legislation since the 1980s. “It simply means that the tax value of your home can be raised based on what neighbors paid for their homes instead of what you paid for yours.” Many supporters of the freeze, like Polleys, claim that the freeze helps protect homeowners from corruption and aggressive property appraisals.
Columbus’ citizens have been fighting to thaw or keep the freeze since 1982 when the law was first enacted. Co-chair of the Keep the Freeze campaign, Charmaine Crabb, says that the freeze draws prospective homeowners to Columbus. “Before the freeze began in 1982, Columbus had the highest taxes in the area because we serve a greater region and we are central hub,” she said. “[Columbus’ size is] a given. Nothing will ever change that, so the fact that we can promise security to people is an incentive to get people to stay.”
Crabb made a final statement on behalf of Columbus voters concerning the future of the legislation. “The citizens of Columbus once again spoke very clearly to the politicians that they are very happy with the tax freeze, and they do not want to get rid of it, and they hope that the message came across loud and clear that the future and current mayors need to leave it alone and be done with it.”
