photo by: Journal-World

The west side of the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.

Budget hearings are this coming week at the Douglas County Courthouse, and County Administrator Sarah Plinsky and her staff are proposing a plan that would keep the mill levy flat for 2024.

Last year, as the Journal-World reported, the county adopted a $163.7 million budget for 2023 that had a mill levy of 46.380. The 2024 budget proposal from Plinsky checks in at around $194 million, but its mill levy would be nearly the same as in 2023 at 46.219 mills.

Plinsky told the Journal-World Thursday that the County Commission specifically requested a budget that kept the mill levy flat.

“I was directed to propose a flat mill, but policy decisions are the commission’s job,” she said.

Even if the mill levy stays flat, tax bills are unlikely to stay the same, because real estate and personal property assessed valuations have been growing in recent years. In a news release, the county said that total assessed valuations grew by 12.44% in 2021 and by 10.98% in 2022 — compared to 5.09% from 2018 to 2020.

“During the past two years, the assessed valuation growth rate has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic stimulus, leading to fluctuation in the normal rate of growth seen in Douglas County,” the county’s news release read.

The proposed budget takes into account increased expenses for existing services and commodities, including “road and bridge materials, utilities and fuel,” the release said. It also would take $2.4 million from the county’s general fund to supplement the $6.1 million behavioral health sales tax fund, which would help the county provide ongoing support for the new behavioral health crisis center, behavioral health court, substance abuse treatment programs and other initiatives on that front.

But the budget proposal is just a starting point, and at this week’s hearings, commissioners will field funding requests from community partners that aren’t included in the proposed budget. Partner organizations and county agencies have made $16.5 million worth of requests; $5.3 million of those are for one-time expenses.

The budget hearings are slated for 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday through Friday and are open to the public.

The opening day of hearings will include presentations from emergency services, the justice system and law enforcement. On the second day, commissioners will hear requests from economic development organizations, historic preservation groups and more. The final day will focus on health and human services, with several social service nonprofits scheduled to discuss their requests.

Budget deliberations will be later this month, from 9 a.m. to noon July 10-12, as well as July 13, if necessary. If all goes according to plan, commissioners are expected to adopt the budget during a public hearing at the commission’s regular business meeting on Aug. 30.

Plinsky said the objective in the coming weeks is to have an all-encompassing discussion about the budget, with topics that assess budgetary trends for departments, and not just focus exclusively on available options related to proposals.

“We’ve put in a ton of work over the past several months to get to this point,” Plinsky said, “modifying and shaping the proposed budget.”

Plinsky added that the county is in good shape as far as cash balances and reserves, and she said that it’s important that residents and everyone involved understand that “each item (in the budget) represents a service to the community.”

The commission will convene at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.