It won’t be formally voted on until August, but Douglas County commissioners on Monday agreed to an estimated $49 million county budget.

As a result, county taxpayers will be dealt a slightly higher tax rate in 2006 compared to this year.

The county will have to levy 30.075 mills in property taxes to fund the estimated 2006 budget.

The county levied 29.856 mills to fund the 2005 budget of $47.5 million. A mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed valuation.

“I’m OK with this,” said Commission Chairman Charles Jones.

Based on the mill levy, a person owning a home appraised at $200,000 would pay about $692 in county taxes in 2006 – $5 more compared to this year. That doesn’t include taxes for other governmental units or increases in property evaluations.

Last week, during budget discussions, commissioners reduced a transfer to the ambulance reserve fund by $80,000. On Monday, they opted to reinstate the money, bolstering the transfer to the ambulance reserve fund to the requested amount of $244,000.

Commissioners have said they wanted to keep the mill levy steady. But Jones and Commissioner Bob Johnson were willing to increase the mill levy to collect $200,000 to help build new commercial laboratory space and to hire an executive to oversee the community’s bioscience development efforts.