County Commissioners approve inside millage reduction

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

For the second time, the Van Wert County Commissioners have voted to reduce inside millage, meaning property taxes throughout the county should decrease.

In Ohio, inside millage is an unvoted property tax rate that local governments and school districts can levy without a direct vote from the public.

Appearing on this past Sunday’s Commissioners Corner/Mayor’s Conference program on radio stations 99.7FM WKSD and WERT 1220AM/104.3FM, Commissioner Stan Owens explained the latest cut, which was approved in late October. It took the inside millage from 1.8 to 1.3 mills. The initial cut, which came approximately two years ago, was from 2.4 to 1.8 mills, which resulted in savings of about $400,000. The latest cut, according to Van Wert County Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger, should result in collective property tax savings of close to $600,000.

“We’ve cut that to pass tax savings back to our residents, along with what we did with the homestead exemption,” Owens said on the radio program. “We’ve reimplemented it (the homestead exemption) for another year to benefit our elderly people and lower fixed incomes with the high cost of food, heating and gas and so forth.”

“The bottom line is these tax dollars are the people’s money and we need to be responsible to where we can maintain our obligations of funding for operations in the county,” he added. “If we have an excess, we need to get that back to the people. One of the things that’s allowed us to do this is our sales tax – it’s been strong because people are shopping locally and compared to last year we’ve had one down month so far this year.”

Owens went on to state that another tax cut is possible in 2027.

“If our tax base grows where we can adequately fund our operations that we’re obligated to through the general fund, we’ll look at another tax cut next year if we can,” Owens said.

The Commissioners Corner/Mayor’s Conference radio program can be heard in its entirety below.