By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Residents of Barton County began receiving their revenue-neutral tax notices over the weekend. While Barton County is listed among the taxing entities at the top of the document, the board of commissioners has insisted on its goal of remaining revenue neutral in 2025 - or collecting fewer tax dollars than the year before. Tuesday morning, the board did just that by approving the 2025 budget at $39,071 less than the 2024 budget. County Administrator Matt Patzner presented the new budget in a special hearing before the regular meeting.
"It is my privilege to present the proposed 2025 Barton County Operating Budget to the commission today," he said. "This budget is the organizational blueprint to maintain delivery of quality public services at an affordable cost to the taxpayer."
The county used an assessed value of $320,986,564 for its mill levy for 2025, compared to $292,490,734 last year. The budget dropped the mill levy from 37.146 mills last year to 35.767 mills for 2025. Since 2021, that means Barton County has lowered its mill levy 10.551 mills and collected $265,905 fewer in ad-valorem taxes in that span.
"In summary, the 2025 budget is funded by a mill levy that is 1.379 mills less than the previous year and consistent with our prescribed revenue-neutral rate which generates $11,959,821," Patzner said. "This was made possible with careful planning and the foresight to begin 2024 with a sufficient level of cash carryforward to deal with project costs, inflation, and ever-increasing contract and commodity prices while still making a healthy transfer into reserves for the future."
Of the $25,199,650 in expenditure authority of budgeted funds, 59 percent is either public safety, public works, or public health. Depending on where a resident lives in the county, 18-23 percent of property taxes paid this year will go to Barton County. That is down two percent from last year. Overall, the county needs 51 percent of its funding to balance its 2025 budget, also down two percent from a year ago. If the trend continues in 2026, the county would require less than half of its budget to come from property taxes for the first time in recent memory, if ever.
Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson asked if policies enacted by the commission in recent years are a driving force behind the changes.
"Absolutely," Patzner said. "Going through this process, you talk about those things in the abstract as you're coming up with them. Going through this process, laying it out, and creating the charts, you're actually starting to see the fruits of our labor."
Those projects include the Façade Improvement Grants, with which the county invested more than $1 million into downtown businesses, generating more than $2 million in total investment. The county has also cut nine positions due to attrition while being able to pay current employees more.