Lawrenceville officials approved the city’s $147 million 2022 annual budget on Monday, which includes an expectation of increasing the property tax rate by about 25%.
City Council will consider the rate increase in the next 60 days. The new rate would increase the annual bill of the average homeowner with a $200,000 home in the Gwinnett city by about $36.
City staff expects the new rate to increase collections by 14.7%, adding $435,000 in revenue. It would be the first instance of Lawrenceville officials raising the property tax rate in 30 years.
Officials have planned to raise the rate since 2020 to add four police officers and three street maintenance crew workers. The new positions are meant to accommodate the population growth experienced by Lawrenceville over the past decade, said City Manager Chuck Warbington.
Warbington stressed that Lawrenceville’s property tax rate would still be considerably lower than the rates in other Gwinnett cities. The current tax rates for Dacula and Lilburn are about twice as high, while Duluth’s is about three times as high.
Property taxes are calculated based on assessed home value, which amounts to 40% of the fair market value of a home. Homeowners pay a combination of city, county and school taxes. Municipalities set their own tax rates on top of the county’s.
Along with several other Gwinnett cities, Lawrenceville will begin collecting its own property taxes rather than paying the county’s tax commissioner to do it. It’s still unclear when bills will be sent out and become due for Lawrenceville residents, Warbington said.
Bills for county and school taxes will be sent out in August and become due in October, according to the tax commissioner’s website.
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