MARSHALL — Lyon County will be moving forward with a levy increase of 1.1% in 2024. County commissioners voted to approve a final 2024 budget and levy on Tuesday.

During the county’s “Truth In Taxation” meeting earlier this month, County Administrator Loren Stomberg said that the budget process this year had been something he’d never seen before. There were a couple of unusual factors that made an impact on the proposed 2024 budget. The first, he said, was that the county would be receiving more program aid from the state. Another major factor was that interest rates had increased rapidly.

Lyon County had also seen some changes to budget requests from county departments this year. The proposed budget for public health was down more than $56,000 from 2023 – a reduction of about 15.8%.

At the Truth In Taxation meeting, Stomberg said that due to an increase in state funding, the probation department also had a smaller budget request than first expected. The proposed probation budget was a decrease of more than $183,000, or more than 63%, from 2023.

Overall, the county was looking at a net levy of $16.2 million in 2024. That would be a levy increase of about $171,000, or 1.1%, from 2023. This will be the third year in a row that Lyon County’s net levy increase has been less than 2%.

There was a period of about five years, from 2009 to 2014, where Lyon County kept its property tax levy at the same level every year. That was followed by some levy increases in the 4 to 6% range. However, the biggest county levy increase in the past six years was only 2.23%, in 2020.