Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Dorchester Shows Value Of Smaller Schools; Claims Area's Lowest Property Tax Rate


Over the years, this publication has spent plenty of electronic ink discussing property taxes and how those dollars are spent.  Today, we examine exactly how those property tax dollars are levied in Saline County.  

(Remember, property taxes are levied and collected by local government -- not the state or federal government.  The latter take your money in the form of income tax and sales tax.)

In 2014, the latest year of data available, Saline County's taxing entities collected more than $31.2 million dollars in property tax revenue.

Here's where your property tax dollars go if you live in Saline County, by percentage:

* Your school district:  64%
* County government:  21%
* Your city:  8%
* Your community college district:  4%
* Misc. (NRD's, ESU's, etc.): Remaining  3%

Who pays the property taxes to fund these entities? Here's the list of payers, by percentage:

* Ag land owners:  54%
* Home and other residential property owners:  28%
* Non-farm businesses and industry:  9%
* Ag machinery (personal property tax):  4%
* Misc. (commercial machinery, railroads, farm outbuildings, etc.):  5%

In Saline County, ag land comprises more than 60% of the county's privately held, taxable property in terms of value.  Residential property accounts for 22% of the county's taxable property in terms value.

Now that we know that 64% of our property tax dollars go to pay for our local school district, how do area schools compare when it come to tax rates?  

Here's a look at the rates of area schools. (The tax rates general tell us about the financial condition of each school district and their board's willingness to spend.)

School District                   2014 Tax Rate

LINCOLN (highest rate)         $1.09 levied for every $100 of valuation (doesn't include extra taxes for multiple bonds approved by voters)

MALCOLM                                $1.07 (doesn't include bonds)
CRETE                                        $1.04 (doesn't include bonds costing extra $0.07 and $0.18)
NORRIS                                     $1.04 (doesn't include several bonds)
FREEMAN                                 $0.96 (doesn't include bonds)
MILFORD                                  $0.96 (doesn't include bond of $0.04) 
FRIEND                                      $0.94 (doesn't include bond of $0.14)
WILBER-CLATONIA               $0.88 (doesn't include bonds of $0.01 and $0.08)
EXETER-MILLIGAN               $0.77 (doesn't include bond for voter-approved construction)
MERIDIAN                                 $0.76
DORCHESTER (lowest rate)  $0.70 (doesn't include bond of $0.09)

1 comment:

  1. Good story. Too bad newspapers don't print this kind of data. They have walked away from their role as the fourth estate of government and become a mouthpiece for liberal/socialist/communist rule.

    ReplyDelete

Village Dweller checks all reader comments to determine if they are appropriate for print.