Harris County, Ga. offers lush hiking trails and game lands, sports facilities, rodeo grounds, and a top-tier school system, all about 90 miles southwest of Atlanta.
So the surge of transplants who have fled the traffic-choked sprawl of the capital region for more spacious homes in the Appalachian foothills wasn’t a surprise to Harris County Manager Clark Harrell.
More homes also means more property tax revenue for local budgets that help make the community even more of a draw—even if many residents still drive to neighboring counties to work and shop for groceries.
But last Friday, Harrell, like many of his local counterparts across the state, was fretting over a proposal in the Republican-led state legislature that would’ve blown a multimillion-dollar hole in those budgets. Lawmakers were pursuing a bill to eliminate property taxes for all Georgia homeowners, a tactic bubbling in multiple states as affordability commands the spotlight.
Harris County would have had no way to close the gap; the county can add just one more penny to its sales tax rate before hitting a state cap. The next step would’ve been cutting resident services, Harrell said.
Intense lobbying by Harrell and other local officials ended up persuading the state House to scale back its proposal. The new bill, now in the Senate, would cap annual property tax revenue growth at 3% or the rate of inflation, whichever is higher.
Still, the push to eliminate property taxes won’t fade away, Harrell and others say.
“In theory, what they’re wanting to do is great,” said Harrell, who has suggested the state instead impose a 1% statewide sales tax to pay for cutting local property taxes. “But let’s figure out how to do it.”
Seeking Relief
The same debate is raging in capitals across the country, as property tax bills have soared with rising home values, causing sticker shock for both first-time buyers and seniors on fixed incomes. Inflation, plus higher health care and insurance costs, are also being cited by the local school districts and governments hiking their millage rates.
Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature has proposed letting voters decide, in a ballot question this November, whether to amend the state constitution to eliminate non-school property taxes. Supporters point to $56 billion in property tax revenue collected by local governments over seven years—a 75% increase. But the state’s local governments face a projected $18 billion budget hole.
Other states have found less aggressive ways to provide relief. Ohio enacted tax changes in 2025 to save property owners $2 billion over three years. North Dakota passed a $1,600 credit to offset property taxes, paid for by the state’s oil and gas taxes. And Texas raised property tax exemptions, using budget surpluses to help local school districts adjust.
“You’re seeing state policy makers come in and attempt to make—or are making—sweeping changes,” said Liz Farmer, a senior officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts who studies state fiscal policy issues. “When you do anything with the property tax, it affects how much money localities have to spend on services.”
In Georgia, total property tax collections rose from $13 billion in 2019 to more than $20 billion in 2025—double the pace of inflation, according to state Rep. Shaw Blackmon, a Republican from just south of Macon who sponsored the property tax bills.
“We intend to provide real, meaningful, and decisive property tax relief while at the same time remaining respectful of our local governments’ services and operations,” Blackmon said. He floated repealing a state sales tax exemption for data centers to help cover the costs, but other legislative proposals would end the exemption to cut income taxes.
About 1,100 real estate agents flooded Georgia’s capitol last month to lobby for property tax cuts, citing their clients’ struggle to afford homes. “Many seniors are being forced out of their houses due to rising property taxes that they cannot anticipate,” Betsy Bradfield, advocacy director for the Georgia Association of Realtors, told lawmakers at a House Ways and Means committee hearing.
The initial measure (HR 1114) proposed a constitutional amendment that would put homestead property tax elimination on the ballot. It failed to advance last week with the required two-thirds vote after all but one Democrat voted against it. “The math’s just not mathing—it does not add up,” House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley (D) said before that vote.
The 3% annual cap on property tax growth (HB 1116) that did pass builds on years of debate. The state enacted a law in 2024 that limited increases in the taxable value of homes to the prior year’s inflation rate. But it also allowed local governments to opt out—and many did.
‘Precious Pennies’
Harris County, bordering Alabama, is wedged between population hubs like Columbus and West Point. It shows the vulnerability created by even a modest dip in property tax revenue.
The county couldn’t rely on sales taxes because it lacks a robust commercial base to draw local shoppers, said Greg Panzer, the county’s economic development director. Roughly 86% of sales taxes paid by Harris County residents are in neighboring counties, according to a study of consumer spending data.
A lack of sewer infrastructure has deterred more large-scale development beyond a business park in the far northwest corner of the county, Panzer said during a drive last week in the area, pointing out a truck stop and restaurants that cropped up just over the Troup County line.
Harris County is “built on housing and tourism,” he said, weaving through forests of tall pines that lined the the sparse two-lane road back to Hamilton, the county seat. “Tourism’s great, but that can be cyclical and seasonal.”
The 5,600-student Harris County School District, ranked as a top academic performer by an annual state college readiness survey, would almost certainly have to cut teachers and staff, said Superintendent Justin Finney. A mix of property tax and sales tax revenue supports a fleet of about 100 school buses that traverse 436 square miles of the county.
Being forced to rely on sales tax revenue would mean “we go from being one of the best-funded school districts—because of our high property values—to one of the lowest-funded school districts,” Finney said.
The “precious pennies” the county collects in sales taxes, as Harrell describes them, are already committed. They fund roads and capital projects at its community center, library, and courthouse, which recently underwent several years of renovation to replace a leaky roof and spruce up the interior.
Even with lower property taxes, household costs could simply shift to other services, Harrell said. Commercial and industrial properties, which under the proposed state legislation would continue paying property taxes, could shoulder a disproportionate burden.
Last Friday, as the legislature met for a marathon session on the final day to send bills to the other chamber for consideration, Harris County Superior Court Clerk Stacy Haralson sat in her office almost 90 miles away, anxiously watching a live stream of the action.
Haralson had made a trip to the golden-domed capitol building three days earlier, meeting with Hugley.
“We are in a very tough situation,” Haralson said. “It boils down to what they do underneath that gold dome. And that’s scary.”
A Homeowner’s Choice
Property taxes have become a hot topic for Lisa Pound, a real estate agent who lives in Callaway Gardens, a touristy complex with a lodge and gardens just north of the Harris County seat. Pound, whose clients skew older and retired, are usually surprised when she estimates their tax bill.
The school district portion of the bill—which increased last year by 15%, to $1,850 on each $100,000 of assessed value—causes the most angst for clients that don’t have school-aged children, she said.
“I usually get a little bit of a gasp when I tell them,” Pound said. When she talks to neighbors and previous clients, they say, “I’ve been here for six years and my taxes are double what they were. I hope I can continue to live here.”
Harris County’s median property tax bill increased to $2,470 in 2023 from $1,748 in 2017, according to a database compiled by the Tax Foundation, a Washington, DC-based research group. The median bill for county taxpayers was $644 to $1,806 higher than bills in neighboring counties, the group found.
Tammy Greathouse, a 63-year-old homeowner living in LaGrange, faced a tough decision after her annual property taxes rose roughly 30% to $860. She had retired with a disability check, but her monthly mortgage payment jumped by $150 to cover the taxes and insurance.
Greathouse decided to take a job at a guard booth at Callaway Gardens to keep her home, she said.
“For a single person, it buried me—between that and my homeowner’s insurance,” Greathouse said after a shift, sliding the “closed” sign into place. “I’ve had to give up a large portion of my disability to be able to come to work, but I was still gonna be better off and be able to stay at my house.”
Like other county leaders, Finney, the schools superintendent, was sensitive to the plight of taxpayers. In fact, the district is now seeing fewer families with young children able to afford living there, he said, because housing prices are so high.
One problem with the tax cut proposals, he said, is the pace at which they’re being proposed. “They’re just spur-of-the-moment, knee-jerk reactions,” he said.
Even if full property tax elimination doesn’t pass this year, “we know it’s coming back next year,” he said. “At least that’s gonna give us all time to talk about it and come up with some solutions.”
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