Your Taxes
Grant Township, Cheboygan County, Michigan
www.granttwp.com
             2009/2010 Taxes
If you have questions about your 2009/2010 tax
bill, you may contact Township Treasurer Rachel
Vallance at 231-625-2997. Rachel has a full time
job away from home, so you should call between
6 P.M. and 9 P.M. weekdays or anytime on
weekends. Please leave a message if you get her
machine. If you have a local return your call
during business hours. If you wish to pay your
taxes in person, Rachel lives at 4280 S. River Rd.
Please call ahead to be sure she is home and, if
paying cash, you must have the correct change.
All township millage rates are subject to a millage reduction fraction referred to as the Headlee Amendment "rollback," which is
annually applied to a townships maximum authorized millage rates to ensure that the total revenues raised on existing property do
not increase more than the rate of inflation. The only exception is when a millage is approved by the voters after May 1 and levied
(collected) in December of that same calendar year; that millage will be levied "intact" in that first levy.

In practice this means that a millage rate of 2 mills will be "rolled back" (reduced) to less than 2 mills in the second year it is levied,
and rolled back again in the third year it is levied - experiencing a rollback for every subsequent year it is levied until it expires.


Technically, every millage question is an "increase." According to the law, a property tax increase may be called a "renewal" when it
is approved at the same or lower millage rate the previous millage was at when it expired. Let's say a township had a 2-mill road
millage for 5 years. With the annual rollbacks, the road millage rate was at 1.8755 in the last year the millage was levied. If the
township wants to use a renewal ballot question - and label the  millage as a "renewal" - it must as the voters to approve the road
millage at 1.8755.


A township board can get back to the original millage rate in two ways:
1) Increase - Place on the ballot a proposal for the same millage rate and purpose(s) as the original tax. This cannot be labeled as
a renewal.      
or  
2) Renewal plus Increase: Seek voter approval of a renewal of the tax (at the rate it was when it expired) AND seek voter approval
of an increase that represents the difference between the renewal rate and the original rate.

If the increase is.5 mills or less, this combined millage ballot question may be called a "renewal." If the increase is over .5 mills, the
renewal and increase must be presented as two separate ballot questions.
Understanding the Headlee Rollback
Renewal vs. Increase
What about getting back to the full 2 mills again?