Cass County Auditor Dale Sundermen, today (Wednesday), issued a statement says there appears to be a misunderstanding among the public, on what a ‘tax levy’ is.  A property ‘TAX LEVY,’ he says, is the simply the amount in dollars that is to be generated  by taxing real estate property after all other sources of revenue/funds have been considered

[Total Expenses – All other sources of funds/revenues = amount to be raised by Real Estate Property Taxes]  (See the PDF link below to see data/spread sheets)

Levy Info.

See the line titled “Total Tax Levy’ on the first page of the attachment as an example.  [Note: The Maximum Proposed Property Tax Levy only covers the ‘regular’ levies;
which means it does not include voted levies, debt service levies, ag land levies, capital project levies, etc.]

The line below that line is ‘Tax Rate’ or the rate that is calculated by dividing the ‘Tax Levy’ by the “Regular Taxable Valuation/1,000”. When the valuation increases, the ‘Tax Rate’ goes down.  Note column three compared to column 2.

Column 4 of line ‘Regular General’ shows ‘TAX LEVY’ increased (but the tax rate is still 8.10000).

Why is it showing increased tax dollars: The regular general levy for cities must be at 8.1 before the supplemental levies (such as FICA and IPERS) may be used. To calculate whether or not the ‘TAX LEVY’ increased or decreased compare column 3 to column 4 for each individual tax levy (column 1). In this example: Column 5 ‘Annual % CHG’ reports that the combined ‘TAX LEVY’ increased a little more than 2.87% and the tax rate increased from 12.42 dollars per $1,000 of taxable valuation to 12.45 dollars per $1,000 of taxable valuation.

Summation: to decide whether or not the TAX LEVY has increased, decreased or remained the same: compare column 2 Current Year Certified Property Tax 2020-2021 of the NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING- CITY OF ATLANTIC – PROPOSED PROPERTY TAX LEVY to column 4 Budget Year Proposed Maximum Property Tax 2021-2022; or compare column (A) on current year ending June 30, 2021 Adoption of Budget and Certification of City Taxes (page 3 of attachment) with the column headed Request with Utility Replacement (page 2 of attachment).