County lowers levy by .771 mills

Dickinson County Commissioners approved a $34,306,358 budget for 2025.

Marcus Rothchild, assistant county administrator and finance director, went over details of the budget with the commissioners and the public during the Aug. 22 commission meeting.

“The 2025 budget includes a mill levy reduction of .771, which lowers the total property taxes collected for the 2025 year by $14,448 compared to 2024,” he said.

The budget consists of 22 budgeted funds and an additional 15 that are non-budgeted, he said. Those funds are listed on the state budget every year and the county is required to report the expenditures and revenue on those, they include six tax-levy funds.

“These are the funds that you’ll see that affect your property taxes each year,” Rothchild said. “That’s the general fund, the road and bridge fund, the Health Department fund, noxious weed, EMS, bond and interest, and the courthouse renovation and jail project. Those are the funds that you are actually helping to support with your property tax dollars.”

The 2025 mill levy, of 53.8 is about one mill higher than it was 10 years ago but the assessed valuation of Dickinson County property has climbed in that time.

The 2025 budget will require $618.07 on a $100,000 home, this is $7.36 less than taxpayers are dishing out this year.

“It’s not a lot of money, but every little bit we can take off helps and last year we were able to do the same thing,” he said.

In Other Business

• County Administrator Janelle Dockendorf reported that several items recently auctioned off through Purple Wave brought in about $87,000, the bulk of which will go into the sheriff department’s asset forfeiture fund.

• Dockendorf also spoke about the Community Emergency Response Team training that Emergency Management Director Chancy Smith conducted at Abilene High School.

“He’s done that for the past several years in Herington and the Herington High School team … has competed nationally with the CERT program and have won some awards,” she said. “We’re pleased that we have another high school in the county that’s doing that. And, he’s going to be reaching out to other high schools as well.

• County Attorney Doug Thompson said he expects to have a title report soon on the parcels of real estate in the county that have delinquent taxes. When he receives the report he’ll move forward with a tax sale, he said.

Thompson said he is also working with officials in Geary County who are interested in replicating Dickinson County’s successful Recovery Court program.

• County Clerk Jeanne Livingston reported on the final canvassing of the 2025 primary election. Of the 13,593 registered voters in Dickinson County 3,550 ballots were cast for a 26.11% turnout.

Election officials did a full hand recount of the election after a discrepancy was discovered between the numbers reported the night of the election and the state audit.

The discrepancy was traced down to 19 ballots that the representative from the election machine vendor company had inadvertently run through the machine twice.