By Emma Loura/Manhattan Mercury
The proposed USD 383 budget for fiscal year 2025 may raise taxes 4% for the average homeowner in the school district.
The projected mill levy for fiscal year 2025 is 60.078 mills. In fiscal year 2024, the mill levy was 60.095 mills.
A mill is $1 in taxes for every $1,000 in assessed, taxable property value.
That means the owner of a $100,000 property would have paid $461.09 in county taxes last year; that same homeowner would pay $483.94 this year on property now valued at $105,000, a $22 difference based on the average valuation increase of an existing single-family home.
“As long as we’re growing, we’re growing to exceed the revenue-neutral rate almost every time,” Superintendent Eric Reid said.
A revenue-neutral rate is the rate at which an entity generates the same revenue from property taxes as levies the previous year, while using the total assessed valuation from the current tax year. The rate would be lower when property valuations are up and higher when valuations are down.
Reid said it is advised to keep the local option budget, or LOB, maxed out because of required transfers limiting what the school district can do with the funds. Reducing the LOB would reduce the amount of aid USD 383 can get.
“The estimated valuation is going up 4.23%,” board member Greg Hoyt said. “We’re taking action tonight because we have to notify the county of the potential that we’re going to exceed the revenue neutral rate but that doesn’t mean we’ve made any decisions on what our mill levy is going to be. We just have to do this so we have the latitude to do what we need to do.”
The school board approved the revenue neutral county certification with Riley County for the 2024-25 budget year.
The Manhattan-Ogden district will exceed the revenue-neutral rate for mill levy funds for fiscal year 2025.
