Warren County residents won't pay any property taxes to their county government for 2021.
That's thanks in part to a property tax holiday approved by the Board of Commissioners on Nov. 2. The county will not collect the $78.75 per $100,000 in assessed home value it normally receives every year to run the local county government.
Two other boards are also granting tax holidays for the 2022 fiscal year. The Senior Services Board will not collect the $29.94 per $100,000 in assessed home value it would normally owed from the 2022 levy. The Board of Developmental Disabilities is continuing to roll back its levy of $45.93 per $100,000 home, as it has done since 2017.
All this means a reduction of $151.62 per $100,000 in home value that property owners in Warren County won't have to pay in 2022.
The state officials the board worked with said this is the biggest one-year property tax rollback in state history, Warren County Commissioner Dave Young told The Enquirer.
"For more than a decade we’ve been very fiscally responsible," Young said. "So, we're simply not going to collect what the residents owe."
The one-time break will cost the county around $24 million it could have collected, but Young said that won’t change anything the county offers.
“No, we’re not cutting any services, we’re not cutting any employees, we’re not cutting anything,” Young explained. “We’ve simply been in a financial position to build up, honestly, north of a $50 million carryover.”
Young said the county still has more than $20 million in carryover that provides them with a cushion if they need to take on a costly project.
Despite these rollbacks, residents will still pay about the same amount in property taxes as they have in years past, Young said.
That's because most property taxes go to local school districts, not the county. Property tax dollars also go to the county health district and the individual fire and police departments, cities, townships, libraries and other local taxing districts.
Warren County property values have risen in the last three years and that increase will be included in property taxes after the tax holiday.
Commissioners also announced that they will use the county's roughly $46 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for ongoing needs related to the pandemic, and investing in the county’s infrastructure and economic development.
The commissioners plan to allocate $6.4 million to replace the Warren County Water Department's water surcharge that impacts about 33,000 households. They also plan to use the money to connect underserved and rural areas to broadband services, increase capacity in childcare centers and fund workforce development programs. The county also plans to invest in the Warren County Sports Park.
Enquirer media partner Fox19 contributed
Erin Glynn is the watchdog reporter for Butler, Warren and Clermont counties through the Report For America program. The Enquirer needs local donors to help fund her grant-funded position. If you want to support Glynn's work, you can donate to her Report For America position at this website or email her editor Carl Weiser at [email protected] to find out how you can help fund her work.
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