East Ellijay City Council held the first of three public hearings regarding their plans to “opt out” of House Bill 581, also known as the Save Our Homes Act.
HB 581 establishes a statewide, “floating” homestead exemption that allows the assessment on properties to only rise annually at the rate of inflation.
Gilmer County already has a homestead exemption in place. The new legislation would not replace existing exemptions, the taxpayer would receive whichever of the two is more beneficial.
Any local government wishing not to participate in HB 581 can opt out by March 1. To pass that resolution, they must hold three public hearings and run required advertisements.
More than 15 people were in the crowd at last Wednesday’s hearing, but no one spoke for, or against, the council’s decision when asked to.
Mayor Don Callihan explained his reason to those in attendance, noting that East Ellijay does not collect property tax, and that the state shouldn’t have the ability to.
“I feel like there’s some unknowns with this bill, and I don’t want to be told down the road ‘OK, East Ellijay, you need to start collecting property tax’,” Callihan said. “The only way to make that happen is to opt out and maintain local control over that.”
Two more public hearings regarding the homestead exemption will be held on Feb. 5 at 6 p.m., and Feb. 19 at 3 p.m., at the East Ellijay City Hall.
After the hearing, City Council continued their regularly scheduled meeting where they discussed whether or not East Ellijay would make annual payments to the Gilmer County Fire Department.
Gilmer County Chair Charlie Paris proposed the idea to Callihan in a phone call. East Ellijay has already agreed to pay the county $200,000 total over this budget year and next year, to help fund a new ladder truck.
In a later interview, East Ellijay Public Safety Director Larry Callahan, explained the reason the city is helping pay for the truck is because it would mainly be used in the taller, commercial buildings in East Ellijay.
“Even though our tax dollars fund the fire department like everybody else, we did feel like the right thing to do would be to help them with some percentage of [the ladder truck],” Callahan said.
In the meeting, Callihan stated that he was not willing to enter an agreement with the county right now for any additional funding, but is open to revisiting the idea during the 2026-27 budget year. The rest of the council agreed.
“We’ll talk with them, we work great with the county, and the fire department does a great job for us,” Callahan stated. “I just don’t really see our position changing. We kind of feel like that would be being taxed twice, and we just have some opposition of that.”