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HARTINGTON — Cedar County Commissioners approved Tuesday a $29.57 million operating budget for the new fiscal year, up 3.4% from last year.
The county’s total property valuation climbed 23.2% to about $3.90 billion.
With that larger base, the county can raise its overall property-tax request by 9.9% — to $8.46 million — while cutting the levy about 10.8%, to roughly 21.7 cents per $100 of valuation.
The county will collect 9.9% more in total property taxes, but because valuations rose faster, the tax rate — the levy — will fall.
If a property’s assessed value jumped more than the countywide average, the county tax could still go up; if it rose less — or fell — taxpayers may see a smaller bill.
What any individual taxpayer owes will still depend on how that specific property’s value changed.
Cedar County Commission Chairman Dave Mc-Gregor said the county works hard each year to stay fiscally responsible.
“I think we’ve looked this (budget) over enough times, that we’ve cut it down about as far as we can,” he said. “But everything costs more. We’ve had to pay more for equipment, supplies and wages.”
McGregor added that putting together a budget involves a lot of guess work.
“You just never know what you’re going to get,” he said. “Last winter was amazing. Overtime, fuel, wear and tear on vehicles — they were all down. We have a lot of variables every year. This winter could be totally different, so you never really know.”
This year’s budget was mostly affected by price and wage increases.
One of the biggest budgetary increases this year is in the Sheriff’s Department budget. Sheriff Larry Koranda submitted a budget that is 38 percent higher than last year’s budget.
The Sheriff’sDepartment budget was $525,000 last year. This year’s budget is for $725,000.
The increase is due to a long overdue increase in manpower, Koranda said. The Sheriff’s Department now has six full-time deputies and six dispatchers. A new vehicle was also put into this year’s budget.
This marks the first time since 2019 that his office has been fully staffed, Koranda said.
“We were really short-handed there for awhile,” he said. “We were down to two deputies and myself for a while last year.”
Koranda said fewer employees meant that in past years, he didn’t request as much money for his department.
“Being short staffed like that, instead of increasing the budget, we were trying to be fiscally responsible and not ask for more. I have to increase the budget now to absorb those extra costs,” he said.
Debt service remains a relatively small slice of the levy at about 4.6%.
The county also preserves $471,976 in unused property-tax authority, giving officials some flexibility heading into next year.
