Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano County Board supervisors will vote Wednesday on a plan that includes a 1.52 percent increase in the 2015 property tax rate.
The proposed levy of $14,887,788 — the most allowed by the state — is $127,660 more than the 2014 levy. If the plan is approved, property owners will pay $5.20 per $1,000 of equalized valuation, up from $5.122 last year, in county taxes.
The owner of a $100,000 home, who paid $512 in county property taxes last year, would pay $520 this year.
Property values dropped 0.69 percent across the county over the last year, according to Finance Director Diane Rusch. The county can raise its levy limit, she said, because of a 0.44 percent increase in new construction.
Rusch said county officials trimmed $800,000 during the budget planning process to come in under the levy limit.
Included in the proposed $59.3 million budget is the implementation of a wage and classification study, which is also on the board’s agenda Wednesday. The recommendations will cost $202,723 to implement.
An estimated $1 million decrease in state aid also affected the county’s plans.
“What stands out to me, as an old department head, is that our intergovernmental money went down,” said Tom Madsen, county administrative coordinator. “That’s what hurts us. They keep whittling away at it.”
The highway and sheriff’s departments took big hits in their budgets, but all departments are seeing cuts. Madsen pointed out that, with years of decreased state aid and few ways to increase budgets under state law, there is little to no fat in departmental budgets anymore.
Rusch and Madsen agreed that continued cuts could impact county services.
“Some of our departments are so small that, when the Finance Committee looked at (their budgets), they said, ‘There’s not much more we can do here,’” Rusch said.