Riley County commissioners met with area lawmakers to discuss the county’s priorities for the 2022 legislative session.
One of the main topics of discussion was the impact of state actions on county dollars.
Treasurer Shilo Heger presented the impacts based on dollar loss and mill levies from her office’s point of view. The numbers presented took place from 2002 to 2022.
For fiscal year 2022, the loss from the local ad valorem tax reduction is approximately $731,000 which represents around 1.08 mills. For revenue sharing, this is a loss of $510,000, equating to around .75 mills. Looking at all the additional areas, the county has had to increase the budget during that time by 5.67 mills to offset losses.
22nd District Senator Tom Hawk says there was 50 million in the budget for LAVTR.
Hawk says he will press the governor to include LAVTR payments in the budget.
Another issue brought up was the fees on mortgages and buying houses. Commission Chair John Ford says while these may be one time fees, they do not offset the lifelong increase in taxes.
District 66 Representative Sydney Carlin says all of these fees were put in place to help offset income tax cuts, but these do not help the average person. With 55% of the Riley County market having rentals, Ford says costs are coming down on renters as well.
Hawk responded saying part of the reason for these costs was to make it slightly cheaper for the closing costs to encourage buying a home. However, Ford says the costs are increasing for homeowners.
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