Supervisors consider an increase in tax levy rate

If the Chickasaw County budget is approved at a public hearing at 9:15 a.m. March 4, property owners in rural areas will see their tax levy increase by less than 43 cents per $1,000 valuation for fiscal 2020.Tax intake from the entire base has gone from $6.054 million in fiscal 2019 to $6.678 million in fiscal 2020.Auditor Joan Knoll paraphrased Board of Supervisors Chairman Jacob Hackman, as having thanked all the department heads Monday for coming together and holding down the budget line “because it couldn’t be done without the department heads at budget time,” Knoll said.The increase in assessed valuations of property also helped hold down the tax asking, Knoll said.Tax asking for rural areas was $8.61826 per $1,000 of assessed value in the current fiscal year, 2019, according to internal auditor’s records, and will be $9.04146 per $1,000 assessed in fiscal 2020 if the budget is approved. Rural residents pay the Rural Services Basic levy on top of the urban county tax rate.Property owners in urban areas will pay the county $6.03771 per $1,000 assessed, on top of their municipal tax rate. Examples of levies everyone pays include the General Basic, General Supplemental, Mental Health, Debt Service and Pioneer Cemetery.Additional taxes are collected for any applicable public school districts, townships, and so forth.The county has budgeted for debt service payments for fiscal year 2020 at $522,548. This is listed as a “new” line item because this is the first time Chickasaw County has gone into debt service bonding procedure, Knoll said.— For more on this story, see the Feb. 8 New Hampton Tribune.