County approves budget with 31% increase in levy

Not keeping pace

We’ve kept the taxes low, the levies low, for multiple years in the past and by keeping them low and not increasing them incrementally, what we saw was the perfect storm this year.”

Garry Seyb, Lee County Supervisor Chair

LEE COUNTY – Lee County residents came out to voice their opposition to the increase in the property tax levy county officials have proposed after budget discussions the past quarter.

The county is looking at a total tax levy rate of $13.52/$1,000 of taxable valuation compared to $10.32 in fiscal year 2023, an increase of about 31% in the total levy.

The county’s general fund levy increased 67%, but as a total tax ask, Supervisors approved Monday at the regular board meeting an increase of $3.20/$1,000 of taxable valuation.

The state’s rollback this year will be about 55%, so a $100,000 home is assessed for taxes at roughly $55,000. The increase in the county’s portion of residents’ tax bills will go from $568 to $744, a difference of $176 annually. A $500,000 home would be assessed at $275,000 with the state’s rollback and that property owner would see an increase in the county’s portion of their tax bill of $865 on the residential property.

Brent Koller with Lee County Farm Bureau said he realized there were a lot of important decisions to be made in a difficult time.

“One thing we do want to stress is that we look at all options and we’re being fiscally responsible with everything,” Koller said.

He said the county needed to look at expenses and inventories and not just raise taxes to fix things.

“Let’s make sure we’re looking at all parts of that.”

Rick Kuntz of Wever, said the county is generating four million in new revenues and asked if it that need was created due to the ambulance service.

Supervisor Chairman Garry Seyb said the ambulance was part of the issue, but not all of it.

“Some of the things that have gone into that is the ambulance service was an added county department and we’ve also added an IT department,” Seyb said.

He said the county has also added a Pioneer Cemetery Commission and those are the three main departments added.

But he said the cost of inflation over the past three or four years has been out of proportion. Seyb said Lee County’s levy over the past 10 years was 32 cents under the average of counties over that time frame.

He said that dynamic has resulted in the county eating up its carry over budget, which helps pay bills from June 30^th to September when tax revenues start coming in.

“Over the past three to five years, it’s been eaten up because we haven’t kept pace with inflation and expenses,” he said.

“We’ve kept the taxes low, the levies low, for multiple years in the past and by keeping them low and not increasing them incrementally, what we saw was the perfect storm this year.”

Seyb said the county is still short for the current fiscal year which ends on June 30^th.

“This levy is an attempt to remedy that for next year, because next year we won’t have the ability to fix the budget,” he said referring to the remainder of the America Rescue Plan Act funds that are in the county’s possession.

The county’s carryover budget is still short about $3 million. He said the carry over budget is not a reserve budget, but an operational budget that gets the county by in lean months.

“Because we’ve kept taxes 32 cents less than the average for the past 10 years, it’s been eating into that. And then when we added the ambulance and the IT department, it put that on steroids,” he said.

“We have to be able to remedy that.”

Ron Fedler said the wage increases of last year haven’t been given enough value in the problems the county is paying.

Fedler, who said he voted against the budget last year that included those wages, said they cost the county an extra $500,000.

“I argued that we needed to raise the levy to pay for this and the counter argument by some people was that this was the year we need to give these raises because we can do it without raising the levy,” Fedler said.

He said that was cutting things short and then the emergencies happened, and things “snowballed”.

“I hear nothing printed about how much more it cost us to pay these wage increases and not raise our revenue,” he said.

“I would challenge the news media to report this.”

Supervisor Chuck Holmes countered Fedler saying the county had deficit spending of $910,000 in 2017 and $954,000 in 2018. The next four years 2019-2022 combined were around $400,000.

County resident Leah Steffensmeier said she understood the budgeting process, but she said lean times sometimes require not increasing the costs to the customer.

“In business, it’s a lot different because your customers have a choice. Sitting out here as a resident, it doesn’t feel like we have much of a choice. There have to be areas where the belt can be cinched in,” she said.

“Do we have programs that are actually working that we are spending money on? What are we getting out of those programs because, if they aren’t serving our communities, maybe we don’t need them? Changes like this are scary. This is the time when it’s time to be creative,” Steffensmeier said.

Steffensmeier, who’s a physician, said four ambulances in the county is a lot, in a nod to the cost of the county’s ambulance service.

Seyb said the county receives more than 6,000 9-1-1 calls annually.

The budget approved Monday generates a General Basic balance, which is the county’s general operating fund, of $1.3 million at the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2024, from a beginning balance of $304,000.

The total expenditures for the county for the upcoming fiscal year are $41.8 million with revenues projected at $40.1 million for $1.2 million in deficit spending.