At Fiscal Court: Magistrates Suggest Another Year of Lower Tax Rates

Darren Doyle, story:
Magistrates discussed county tax rates for 2025 at yesterday's Edmonson County Fiscal Court meeting and have suggested yet another drop in the rate for the upcoming property tax season.

County tax rates have not increased since 2015. The rates are dropping from last year's rate of 12.6 cents per $100 in property value to 12.2 cents, which is still higher than the state's compensating rate of 11.8.

The annual tax hearing has been scheduled for August 25th at 3:45PM. This allows public comment on the issue for any county taxpayer. The rates will be set at the hearing and implemented at the regular meeting to follow at 4PM. The hearing was originally scheduled yesterday for August 11th but the law requires a two-week period for the meeting to be advertised, which was realized today by County Treasurer Tammi Willhite.

Each year, the county can either choose what is known as Kentucky's compensating tax rate, the purpose of which is to ensure the county receives roughly the same property tax revenue as the year before, or they set their own rate. Using the state's compensating rate for this year at 11.8 would require no public hearing. Instead, the county can choose to increase that rate but must include a public hearing. 

Since 2015, Edmonson County's property tax assessment as a whole has increased from $519,122,693 to a current value of $1,037,149,911, according to the Edmonson County PVA's Office, which is nearly a 100% increase.

"We are able to drop the County Property Tax Rate because the Total Assessed Real Property Value continues to grow in Edmonson County and effectively brings in more income for the County than the year before, even with the decreased rate," said Edmonson County Judge/Executive Scott Lindsey.