Tax entities working on new budgets

With a Sept. 20 budget filing deadline looming, local taxing entities are preparing their budgets and tax request for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. 

Taxing entities that rely on agland for a bulk of their revenue will have less valuation to tax against this year. 

While the exact figures aren’t locked in yet by Assessor Peggy Burton, the valuation for Perkins County decreased nearly $24 million, due to lower agland values, or about 2%. The same is true for Perkins County School District 20.

There was a slight increase this year in the towns of Grant (2%) and Venango (3%). 

Elsie saw a 23% percent increase in valuation due to a large increase in personal property and personal property leases.

During Monday’s commissioner meeting, commissioners previewed a budget that will ask for a 4% increase in tax revenue to $3,191,188.65.

At Monday night’s school board meeting, board members got a look at budget models that address building cash reserves and adding money to the building fund for anticipated upkeep and improvements. 

Superintendent Phillip Picquet provided scenarios that ranged from a 13% increase down to a 6.8% increase in tax askings.

Picquet said he will do more assessment on the budget numbers and the board will hold a special meeting to review any changes. 

Grant city council members discussed their budget during their Aug. 11 meeting and will take it up again at the Aug. 25 meeting. 

City Superintendent Edward Dunn said they didn’t have valuation numbers prior to last week’s meeting so will discuss it further this week. Over the coming weeks, taxing entities are required to publish their tax request and budget hearing dates to fulfill the Sept. 20 filing deadline.