County tax rate predicted to fall

Marathon County administration will provide county supervisors in October with a balanced $210 million budget for 2023 that will increase property taxes 5.7 percent but drop the tax rate 43 cents to $4.32 per thousand dollars of fair market property, finance director Kristi Palmer told the Human Resources, Finance and Property Committee last Monday.

Palmer said the county’s net new construction allowed the county to approve a $56, 505,506 property tax levy. Given an unusual 11.35 percent increase in the county’s equalized value, the county’s proposed mil rate will drop significantly, Palmer said.

The county’s tax base, she said, is expected to increase from $11.5 billion this year to $13 billion in 2023.

Palmer said the 2023 budget will pencil in an increase in county sales taxes, from $14.5 million to $15 million. County debt payments will also nearly double, she said, from $1.8 million this year to $3.3 million in 2023. The increase is in part due to debt at North Central Health Care.

The finance director said the budget currently assumes an 8 percent increase in county wages and a zero increase in health insurance premiums.

Palmer said the county’s net new construction usually grows at a percentage similar to the growth of its overall tax base. This year, the tax base growth is a multiple of its net new construction (the value of all new buildings minus buildings torn down).

“That’s real strange,” she commented.