The Geary County Commission passed a proposed 2016 budget for publication Monday that included a 6.651 mill increase to the property tax levy.

Commission Chairman, Ben Bennett confirmed the proposed increase Monday.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t take it down further, we’re all still looking at ways to do that,” said Bennett. “We’ve reduced it from the original ten mills down to a six plus mill levy increase.”

The increase would increase the property tax levy to 67.478 mills.

Bennett added that,”the general fund is up four points, health department is 1.4, the ambulance increase is one and a half mills.”

State funding reductions have been cited as one reason for the increases.

 

Commissioner Florence Whitebread further explained that they are continuing to look for cuts to the budget, but it’s going to be hard to find a considerable amount.

“We just don’t have different departments that have that big of a budget,” said Whitebread. “It takes $235,000 to even reduce at a mill, so it’s pretty hard to find that in a budget.”

Once the budget has been published it can be reduced, but cannot be increased any farther. The budget will now go to publication and a public hearing will be held Monday, August 31st.