Myrtue keeps tax asking steady for ‘22

    HARLAN -- The Myrtue Medical Center Board of Trustees approved the proposal to lower the current tax levy of $1.15366 per thousand taxable valuation to $1.13185 for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
    Approval was made following the February 23 public hearing for the county tax budget where no written or verbal comments or objections were received.
    Taxable valuations are expected to be at $938,867,330 for 2021-2022 up from $921,116,431 in 2020-2021.
    Myrtue is estimating a total of $1,062,650 in tax funding which was the same as this year’s funding.
    MMC Chief Financial Officer Kristy Hansen said “Not as large of an increase in property tax valuations as we saw last year.”
    Hansen said after discussions with the finance committee and MMC CEO Barry Jacobsen, it was decided to ask for approval to leave our (MMC) property tax collective funding at the same rate as what we are in this current fiscal year, the same dollar amount.
    “We get our general fund taxes which you have to max out at 27 cents per 1,000 in order to ask for any additional levies. We levied for our social security FICA, our employee benefit of FICA, and also to support the ambulance commission and the ambulance service in our county,” said  Hansen.
    MMC’s current tax asking has ranked the 15th lowest in the state in a summary of 43 hospital tax rates for this fiscal year and 10th lowest in Iowa in dollars levied.