• Voters in Benzie County twice this year have rejected a tax that funds more than half the government’s operation 
  • The tax funds sheriff’s operations, parks and courts; it also funded the county’s townships 
  • The latest tax collection will carry the county through September, after that, a tax allocation board will decide what taxes the county can levy

Police, parks and court operations may be at risk in Benzie County in northern Michigan after voters last week defeated a tax that funds most of its budget for the second time this year.

Last week, the county southwest of Traverse City asked voters to approve for two years a 4.95-mill property tax that provides more than 60% of its budget.

By a 54% to 46% margin, voters rejected the tax that would cost owners of a $200,000 home about $495 a year. A similar request lost by 12 votes in August.

Without a voter-approved tax, state law requires the county to form a tax allocation board made up of county and other local officials to set a property tax rate for the county and its dozen townships without voter input. 

According to the Michigan Treasury, five of Michigan’s 83 counties use similar boards to set their tax rates. Interim County Administrator Leslie Bilbey said this week Benzie County has never had one.

“We tried really hard to leave it in voters’ hands,” said Jon Willow, executive director of the Benzie Area Chamber of Commerce, which held town halls to encourage voters to support the tax.

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Voters approved two smaller countywide tax increases last week — one for animal control and another for drug enforcement — but Willow speculated that residents are hard hit by inflation and defeated the tax to save money.

Voters in the county of 18,500 residents are older than the state as a whole, with nearly a third 65 or older, and also rejected an operating tax and sinking fund millage for the county’s schools last week.

“It just looked like if it was on the ballot and it said tax or money, people just said no,” Willow said.

Statewide, voters approved most tax increases last week, including all but 14 of 124 public safety millage proposals, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis of data from Gongwer News Service. Support for school taxes statewide dipped slightly statewide to 59.5% of requests from 63.8% in May. 

Bilbey said the county has yet to ponder any cuts or layoffs and it’s too soon to tell what rate a tax allocation board might set.

“That is uncharted territory for us right now,” Bilbey said. “We as a county won’t know what we will have for our general fund.” 

The tax expires next month but was last levied in July. Revenue from that collection should carry the county through its budget year, which ends Sept. 30, Bilbey said. 

This year, the tax generated about $6.4 million of the county’s $10.1 million general fund budget and generated nearly $1.2 million for the county’s dozen townships.

“It hurts,” said Mark Roper, supervisor of the county’s Almira Township.

Voters also rejected that township’s operating tax, meaning Roper’s board will be looking at steep cuts when it starts budget talks in January.

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