photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners met for their weekly meeting on Wednesday, October 2, 2024.

County leaders have approved a program that will give some low-income seniors and disabled veterans up to a $300 rebate of their county property taxes, and applications are set to open in January.

At its meeting on Wednesday, the Douglas County Commission voted to approve the pilot program. It will be available to low-income property owners who are either 65 or older or are disabled veterans, and whose homes are appraised at $350,000 or less.

The commission did have some questions about how much participation the program would see.

As the Journal-World has reported, the county set aside $500,000 in the 2025 budget to fund the program, which would allow for just more than 1,600 households to receive the $300 rebates. But Commissioner Karen Willey asked management analyst Jake Broadbent about a similar program in Johnson County that the Douglas County program was modeled on, and Broadbent said there hadn’t been as much participation as Johnson County had hoped for.

Douglas County Appraiser Brad Eldridge told the commission that he estimated between 20 to 50 people would just walk into the office inquiring about the program, but he said if there were more public outreach, then there might be more interest.

The county clerk and administrative staff will be overseeing the application process and determining eligibility. Income eligibility will be based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s very-low-income limits for fiscal year 2024. According to a staff memo to commissioners, a household of four must have an annual income of less than $51,000 to qualify for the tax rebate program, while a household of two needs to earn less than $40,800 per year.

Now that the commission has approved the program, one of the next steps will be setting up a page on the county website, providing residents with program details and application forms. That should happen later this year.

After that, applications will be accepted from Jan. 15 through April 15 of 2025. Applicants will be able to complete the paperwork through the county’s website if they want, but they will also have the option to mail a printed version, along with all required supporting materials, to 1100 Massachusetts St., or to email the documents to propertytaxrebate@dgcoks.gov.

When it comes to plans for the future, Commissioner Patrick Kelly said that while he hopes to return some tax dollars to vulnerable populations, the county doesn’t plan on doing it in a way that will increase the property tax rate.

“We want to put it out there, learn from it and see where to go from there,” Kelly said. ” … We’ve made no commitment to do this long-term by increasing the mill levy, and we certainly didn’t set mill levies in the past with the idea of doing this.”

In other business, commissioners:

• During a work session, heard a presentation about the Heritage Conservation Council’s strategic plan and some of its current projects and objectives.

The HCC’s Natural and Cultural Heritage grant program supports the conservation of natural, cultural, and historic resources in Douglas County. The commissioners allocated $466,192 in funding for heritage partners in the 2025 budget. According to a presentation in the agenda, Douglas County has supported 124 projects since 2011, with more than $3.2 million awarded to heritage conservation initiatives throughout the county.

• Authorized the purchase of two Mack trucks, each equipped with dump beds, snowplows, and spreaders, at a total cost of $540,770.

These two trucks will replace two 2015 Mack trucks scheduled for retirement in 2025. According to a memo in the agenda, the trucks are primarily used by Public Works road crews to transport equipment and materials to various job sites. During the winter months, they will also play a key role in snow removal on county routes.

• Approved construction easements for several road improvement projects.