ATLANTA — For Georgians unhappy about rising property tax bills, lawmakers say they have a solution — a limit on how much of a home’s increasing value can be taxed.

With early balloting underway, voters are deciding on a state constitutional amendment that would limit increases in a home’s value for property tax purposes to the broader rate of inflation each year.

Supporters say it will protect current homeowners from ever-higher property tax bills, but opponents warn that the caps will unfairly shift the burden onto new homeowners, renters and other property holders.

Georgia is one of eight states where voters will decide property tax measures Nov 5, a sign of how rising tax bills are influencing politics nationwide.

Most significant is North Dakota, where a referendum seeks to end the current property tax for all purposes except repaying existing debt. Many officials there, including traditionally low-tax Republicans, are fighting the measure, saying such a big change could disrupt essential state and local government services.

Questions are also on the ballot in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico and Wyoming.

With demand outweighing supply, housing prices are rising nationwide, and those increased values can show up in higher taxes.

From 2018 to 2022, the total assessed value of property across Georgia rose by nearly 39%, according to figures from the Georgia Department of Revenue. Most governments pocketed increased revenues without raising tax rates, boosting employee pay and other spending. Statewide property tax collections rose 41% from 2018 to 2022.

Lawmakers got an earful from constituents and responded with the proposed constitutional amendment. State Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, a Rome Republican who helped write it, calls increases based on higher valuations “a backdoor tax increase.”

“I think that some of our homeowners, particularly the elderly, are getting taxed out of their homes,” Hufstetler said. “They don’t even have an income anymore, but yet their taxes are going sky high.”

The protection would last as long as someone owns their home. The assessed value would reset to the market value when a home is sold.

Dozens of Georgia counties, cities and school systems already operate under similar local assessment caps.

There’s little opposition, and early voters interviewed this week were universally favorable. Brad Turney, who owns a condo in Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood, was among supporters.

“I don’t want it to get out of hand, and I think this might be helpful,” Turney said after voting in suburban Sandy Springs.

But school systems have been wary, warning that the cap could starve them of needed funds. That’s especially true because most school districts can’t raise property tax rates above a certain level.

To ease schools’ concerns, the measure gives local governments and school districts until March 1 to opt out. Any that do not would be permanently governed by the cap.

“You only have one time to opt out, and then you’re done,” said John Zauner, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association. He expects many systems could exit.

Hufstetler said it would be a “mistake” to opt out.

Assessment caps lead to disparities, with people paying higher taxes than their neighbors just because they bought a house later. Audrey Yushkov, a senior policy analyst with the Tax Foundation, warned that the measure could make purchasing a home more difficult in the future, because new buyers would face higher bills and longtime owners would have an incentive to stay in their current houses to keep their tax bills low. The Tax Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based group that is traditionally skeptical of tax hikes.

“There is this lock-in effect for current homeowners and a lock-out effect for new homebuyers,” Yushkov said.

Those effects are rampant in California, which pioneered an even stricter assessment cap, Proposition 13, in 1978.

Yushkov also noted that higher tax bills would be passed on to renters because the amendment doesn’t shield apartments and other commercial property from higher assessments.

The measure also includes a provision letting city and county governments increase sales taxes by a penny on every $1 of sales to replace property taxes. Hufstetler lauded that provision, saying it would allow governments to tax visitors to pay for local services. But Yushkov called it a loser, saying property taxes are more transparent because people get one big yearly bill and because the services are clearly linked to the taxes.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to reinstate six charges in the state’s election subversion case against Donald Trump.

Earlier this year, the judge in the case ruled that six counts, including three specifically against Trump, weren’t detailed enough about the alleged crimes. The counts in question have to do with alleged efforts to appoint fake electors in Georgia, after Trump lost the state in the 2020 election.

In a new filing submitted Tuesday, Willis asked to have that ruling reversed.

“The indictment more than sufficiently placed Cross-Appellees on notice of the conduct at issue and allowed them to prepare an intelligent defense to the charges,” the new filing read.

Lawyers for Trump say the judge’s initial decision to disqualify the counts was unambiguous.

“The brief filed by DA Fani Willis is simply incorrect on the law,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement obtained by Scripps News. “The trial court’s dismissal order properly decided that the State failed to sufficiently plead the allegations in the dismissed counts under Georgia law.”

RELATED STORY | Georgia judge rules on ballot counting and vote certification as early voting begins

The filing comes as Georgia begins early voting for the 2024 presidential election. According to data provided by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, more than 310,000 voters voted in person in Georgia on Tuesday.

This round of voting is seeing its own unique legal developments: a judge ruled on Tuesday that election officials are required to certify the state’s votes by 5p.m. on the Tuesday following the election. He also blocked a rule passed earlier this year that required counties to hand-count all ballots, saying such a change would be “too much, too late” ahead of the 2024 election.

On a four-game win streak, No. 12 Notre Dame hits the road against Georgia Tech looking to stay in the playoff race in college football’s Week 8 action on Saturday. Let’s take a look at the latest prediction for the game from an expert football model that picks winners.

Notre Dame has recovered nicely from its loss to Northern Illinois, winning four straight games and playing the nation’s 8th-ranked scoring defense, although the team just lost star cornerback Benjamin Morrison for the season with a hip injury.

Georgia Tech is on a two-game win streak after losing 2 of its last 3 and sits at 5-2 overall behind a rushing attack that ranks 25th in FBS with over 204 yards per game on average.

Looking ahead to this week’s matchup, let’s check out the latest college football predictions from the Football Power Index computer prediction model.

The model simulates every NCAA college football game 20,000 times and uses key analytics from both teams and picks winners based on a projected scoring margin per game.

So far, the prediction models are siding strongly with the Fighting Irish in this road game.

Notre Dame is projected to win the game outright in the majority 83.5 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations for the matchup.

That leaves Georgia Tech as the expected winner in the remaining 16.5 percent of sims.

In total, Notre Dame came out ahead in 16,700 of the index’s simulations of the game, while Georgia Tech emerged as the winner in the other 3,300 predictions.

The index forecasts a double-digit win for the Irish over the Yellow Jackets on the scoreboard.

Notre Dame is projected to be 14.6 points better than Georgia Tech on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

If so, that would be enough for the Irish to cover the spread.

That’s because Notre Dame is an 11 point favorite against Georgia Tech, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 49.5 points for the game.

And it set the moneyline odds for Notre Dame at -425 and for Georgia Tech at +340 to win outright.

A plurality of bettors expect the Yellow Jackets will make this a game against the Irish, according to the latest spread consensus picks.

Georgia Tech is getting 56 percent of bets to either win in an upset or to keep the game within the line.

Notre Dame is getting the other 44 percent of wagers to win the game and cover the spread.

Notre Dame has a 57.5 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff and will win 10 games this season, according to the FPI’s metrics.

That model gives Georgia Tech a win total prediction of 6.8 games and a 0.7 percent chance at the 12-team playoff.

Football Power Index (FPI) college football rankings and computer prediction model are a measure of team strength that predicts a team’s future performance. 

Rankings and scores predictions are based on 20,000 simulations of a team’s season and games, using a combination of key analytics, including scores to date, quality of opponents, team talent, recruiting, and a team’s schedule.

Teams are ranked not in order of talent like in other rankings, but by a projected point margin per game against an average team on a neutral field.

First-place votes in parentheses

1. Texas (56)
2. Oregon (6)
3. Penn State
4. Ohio State
5. Georgia
6. Miami
7. Alabama
8. LSU
9. Iowa State
10. Clemson
11. Tennessee
12. Notre Dame
13. BYU
14. Texas A&M
15. Boise State
16. Indiana
17. Kansas State
18. Ole Miss
19. Missouri
20. Pittsburgh
21. SMU
22. Illinois
23. Army
24. Michigan
25. Navy

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, please call 1-800-GAMBLER.

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