Eleven of Lincoln County’s 16 school districts have tax millage levies that are lower in 2020 than in 2019 according to Jackie Holcomb, Lincoln County Assessor, which will mean lower taxes for many property owners.
Four school districts tax millage levies are up, although two of them are up less than one-third of one percent. One school district’s tax millage levy stayed the same as last year.
The tax millage levies are applied to the tax roll to determine the amount of each property’s tax. Because of the large number of school districts with lower tax millage levies, many property owners will see lower taxes in 2020.
Holcomb said that changes in property tax millage levies are a result of bonds issued for local school districts for such things as buildings and buses.
She said that when a millage levy goes up it is typically because of a new bond issue and when it goes down it is when bonds are being paid off. For a school to borrow money through a bond issue, it has to be approved by 60% of the voters in the school district.
Prague has the largest increase at 13.48%. This follows a decrease of 16.32% in the Prague school district last year. The increase this year was expected after the big drop in 2019. Other school disricts with increases are Carney, up 6.04%, Harrah, up 0.28%, and Wellston, up 0.02%.
The school districts going down the most were Agra (8.43%), Cushing (4.26%), McLoud (3.20%) and Davenport (2.57%). Chandler, Luther, Meeker, Oak Grove, Paden, Perkins and Stroud all went down from less than one percent to 1.83%. White Rock’s levy did not change this year. .
The actual tax millage levy per $1,000 of assessed value varies widely by school district across the county, based upon the assessed valuation of all the property in the school district and the amount of bonded indebtedness that local voters approve. White Rock has the lowest levy at $74.67 while Perkins-Tryon has the highest at $97.95.
Holcomb said that a $100,000 property with homestead exemption would pay $747 in real estate taxes in the White Rock school district but the same property would pay $980 in the Perkins-Tryon school district.
She said that the voters determine the difference by the amount of school bonds they approve at an election.