No objection as county approves $31.5 million budget
Staff writer
Nobody came to speak Monday at a county budget hearing, and no commission members had anything to say, so commissioners cast a unanimous vote to approve a $31,538,822 budget for 2026.
The budget imposes a revenue-neutral tax rate, meaning the county will get the same amount of property tax this coming year as it did this year.
For the owner of a house appraised at $100,000, that would mean a property tax bill of $803.15 for county purposes. For a business appraised at the same amount, the county’s share of the business’s property taxes would be $1,746.05.
Although total property tax revenue would be unchanged, authority for overall county spending would increase by 23.9%.
Among departments with specific property-tax levies, the biggest increases over what would have been revenue-neutral rates for those departments were for health, up 153.4%, park and lake, up 49.3%, and aging, up 12.2%. The biggest decreases were for ambulance service, down $29.5%, and noxious weed, down 10.1%.
Spending out of the general fund would increase most for the county attorney and related services, up 12.0%; the county commission, up 9.2%; the jail, up 5.5%; and planning, zoning, and environmental health, up 5.2%.
The biggest decrease would be for the sheriff, down 9.2%.
In other business Monday, commissioners and county council Brad Jantz agreed to review a road maintenance agreement the county forged in 2019 with Sunflower Wind.
Commissioner Clarke Dirks said he wasn’t sure Orsted, which owns Sunflower Wind, was using only roads the county gave them permission to use.
“We need to expand that so we don’t have damage,” Jantz said.
Dirks said he knew Sunflower Wind had used Timber and 130th Rds. A non-working generator sits at that location, Dirks said.
“I’m not trying to stop them from what they need to do,” Dirks said.