MONROE — Green County’s tax rate will drop for the second year in a row, this time to $5.43 per $1,000 in equalized value.
A net levy amount of $17,404,377 was part of the county’s 2020 budget approved at the Board of Supervisors meeting Nov. 12.
That means that a property owner with a home valued at $100,000 would pay $543 in county taxes, compared to 2019 when the same property owner would have paid $552.
The preliminary tax levy, as it was referred to in the budget’s introduction by the Finance and Accounting Committee, was $21,100,937, which represents the gap between the county’s revenues and expenditures for the year. But that total was reduced by applying a portion of the sales tax revenue from 2018, in the amount of $2,928,925, followed by taking $767,635 from the undesignated general fund.
That net levy of just over $17.4 million was broken down in the following ways, each passed by a separate resolution:
Resolution 1: $208.76, fees owed to other counties.
Resolution 2: $185,000, construction of bridges.
Resolution 3: $465,378, Green County Library Board, in conjunction with the South Central Library System.
Resolution 4: $40,460, Green County Humane Society.
Resolution 6: $16,713,330.24, all other purposes and expenses.
Resolution 2 excepted the cities of Monroe and Brodhead, as well as the villages of Brooklyn, Browntown and New Glarus. Resolution 4 also excepted the city of Monroe. Rather than approving part of the levied amount, Resolution 5 was used to approve the amount of sales tax revenue used to offset the levy.
The budget discussion and approval drew no public comment.
“Nothing is shocking on (the budget),” said incoming Finance Director Andrea Sweeney.
The most notable item for 2020, Sweeney and outgoing Finance Director Julie Sachs said, was under the Debt Service subheading.
That budget has gone up from $2,088,584 in 2019 to $2,595,951 for 2020, thanks to the bulk of the county’s repayment on bonds for the 2018 government services building starting this year. The bonds, totaling $18 million, were issued in three pieces, the directors said, and the county started to repay them last year, but the bulk of that repayment begins in 2020.
Other contributors to the Debt Services total are bonds issued in September for the Sheriff’s Department radio project and continued payments on the Green County Justice Center.
Under the Judicial subheading, the budget for indigent counseling went up nearly 69%, due to the increase in the state rate for court-appointed attorneys.
The budget passed unanimously with 28 votes in favor; supervisors Sherri Fiduccia, Jody Hoesly and Jeff Williams were absent.
In other matters, the board:
● Heard an update from clerk Michael Doyle regarding the government services building project, which he called “pretty much complete as of last Friday,” including finishing the loading dock at Pleasant View Nursing Home. Doyle added that, much as it took three years for various things to be “ironed out” at the justice center, it would probably take a couple years at the government services building too.
● Received a report called the “Birth Dearth” about declining birth rates in Wisconsin, which are down 12% since 2007, though 40% of that percentage can be explained by the drop in teen pregnancy.
● Passed a resolution to allow for the writing of a grant to put a fiber “backbone” through Green County, in partnership with Bug Tussel Wireless out of Green Bay, though this is not a wireless project. It was presented by Cara Carper, director of Green County Development Corporation, who explained that this was different than the recent broadband grant whose work is still ongoing.
“If we do receive the grant there may be an ask from the county for funding at that point,” she said, but there was no funding sought at this time.
Carper said that multiple counties were involved in the seeking of this regional grant, for fiber to reach from Dubuque to Janesville and up to Madison, and that it was also before the Iowa County Board that night.