Linn County’s FY16 budget, which runs July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016, is now available on the Linn County website. The budget document contains detailed information about the budget, including the process Linn County uses to create the budget through a series of public meetings, expenditures by service area, revenue sources and performance indicators by department. It is Linn County’s goal to make this information as easily understandable and as accessible as possible.
The expenditure budget for fiscal 2016 is $105 million, a decrease of $10 million or 8.9% from the fiscal 2015 adopted budget. Property taxes levied account for 58% of total revenues, a percentage that is relatively unchanged over time due to the annual budget objective of no significant impact to homeowners. Since 1996, Linn County has used the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) approach to performance based budgeting to create its annual budget.
Linn County’s major classes of expenditures are:
• public safety and legal services
• physical health and social services
• mental health
• county environment and education
• roads and transportation
• government services to residents
• administration
• debt service
• capital projects
Levy Rate
The FY16 countywide levy rate of $6.14 is the second lowest of the six largest urban counties in the State. Although there was no change in the countywide levy rate for FY16, residential taxpayers will pay 2.5% more, as a result of the State rollback adjustment that increased the taxable percentage of residential property.
Commercial and industrial taxpayers will see an additional decrease of 5% in taxable value, reducing the taxable amount of those properties to 90% of assessed value.
Rural property owners will continue to pay less due to a decrease in the rural services levy rate. In fiscal year 2015 the levy rate was reduced by $0.93 as a result of property tax relief from the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) revenue that was approved by rural voters. The rural services levy rate that had been $3.71 for several years was reduced to $2.78, resulting in a combined rural levy rate of $8.92 paid by residents in the unincorporated areas. Overall property taxes levied will increase by 2% from fiscal year 2015, due to valuation growth.
Approximately 16 percent of property taxes paid by Linn County property owners in incorporated areas are used to fund Linn County government operations and services. The remaining 84 percent of property taxes paid goes to the property tax payer’s city of residence, school district, and other taxing bodies in the county. Linn County taxes represent slightly more than one-third of property taxes for rural residents. Each property tax bill shows the percentage breakdown specific to that property.
A copy of Linn County’s FY16 budget is available by clicking the “Additional Information” link below.