photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The Douglas County Courthouse is pictured Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022.

The start of Douglas County’s annual budget process is right around the corner, and county leaders are set to hear more this week about how it’ll work and what steps come next.

The Douglas County Commission will be presented with an overview of the 2024 budget development process from county budget manager Cammy Owens during a work session Wednesday. That’ll be the first of many steps in adopting the county’s guiding financial document about six months from now, potentially sometime in August.

One key element of Wednesday’s work session presentation is a tentative budget timeline, which pinpoints Aug. 30 as the possible date the county will host a public hearing for the “revenue-neutral rate” — which refers to the tax rate at which the county would collect the same amount of money in property taxes as it did in the previous year — and adopt the budget.

Last year’s $163.7 million budget was adopted with a tax rate — or mill levy — of 46.380 mills. While that mill levy reflected a year-over-year decrease of about one mill, it was also about four mills higher than what it would’ve taken to keep the revenue-neutral rate from the previous year. That’s thanks to the other factor that determines property tax bills — the county’s property values, which rose enough last year to contribute to a historic 12.4% increase in the county’s tax base.

There will be plenty to do before commissioners tackle the tax rate and approve a budget in August, though, and first on the list will be soliciting funding requests from community partner agencies and county departments during March and April. According to the tentative 2024 budget calendar, Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky will begin budget review meetings with those partner agencies in mid-April and continue through May 1, a process commissioners are also set to be briefed on during Wednesday’s presentation.

Commissioners’ work to review the budget will start about two months later; the calendar lists June 27 as the tentative date for county staff to get a recommended budget to the commission. Not long after, commissioners will begin meeting for daily budget hearings where they’ll hear directly from agencies about their budget requests. Those hearings typically start after the Fourth of July. That’ll be the case again this year according to the calendar, which has them scheduled for July 5-10.

In other business, commissioners will hear an update about the ongoing Kansas legislative session from government relations and lobbying firm Little Government Relations and issue a proclamation declaring March 12-18 as AmeriCorps Week in Douglas County, both during the commission’s regular meeting.

Wednesday’s work session will begin at 4 p.m., followed by the business meeting at 5:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. The meeting will also be available by Zoom. For meeting information, visit the county’s website: dgcoks.org/commissionmeetings.