Property taxes to go up
By SUZANNE WERRE
BHG News Service
An ad in this week’s local papers indicating the county is looking at raising taxes 113.62 percent will probably raise a lot of eyebrows in McLean County.
That 114 percent raise is in mill levy, pointed out McLean County Auditor Les Korgel. That doesn’t mean taxes are going to go up 114 percent.
In addition, he added, that uptick in mills is just according to a preliminary budget the county has come up with after department heads submitted their budget proposals to the commission for approval.
"That is just estimated costs," said Korgel.
The department heads and commissioners cannot add on to those proposed budgets, but they can reduce them, said Korgel.,
"I expect we’ll see some reductions," said Korgel.
Several department heads presented their preliminary budgets at Tuesday’s regular commission meeting at the County Courthouse, while several others had previously presented theirs.
The total requests for the 2016 budget is just over $15.2 million, compared to last year’s approved budget of just over $13 million.
In explaining the reason for such a difference between the 2015 approved budget and the requests for 2016, Korgel said the main reason for the difference is that there is going to be less revenue coming into the county.
"Most of it actually is going to be a decrease in revenue," he said. "To offset that, property taxes have to go up."
The budget request by the Sheriff/Administration/Enforcement Department is just shy of $500,000 more than last year’s budget, accounting for about a fourth of the requested increase.
