Winneshiek County will have a budget of $24.8 million next fiscal year

The Winneshiek County Board has given its unanimous approval to a 2018-2019 county budget which calls for $24,866,581 in spending.  Supervisors approved the spending plan following a half hour public hearing Monday afternoon at which there were no public comments.

The 2018-2019 budget calls for a levy rate of $6.25 per $1,000 of assessed valuation countywide and another $1.95 in rural areas for a total rural rate of $8.21 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.  That's a 10 cent decrease in both rates.  However, the total valuation of property in Winneshiek County is going up by roughly $50 million, so property tax collections for county purposes will total $9,680,690 in 2018/2019, an increase of $228,000, or 2.4 percent.

The budget could vary in the future.  For instance, county supervisors are nervously watching to see what the state legislature does with promised payments to counties to make up for the way the legislature reduced commercial property and industrial property tax rates statewide.  The state is supposed to pay Winneshiek County $114,000 next year in "backfill," but the legislature has yet to take action on that bill.