After two quiet public hearings on its 2026-27 budget and the official property tax request to fund it, Seward County Commissioners on Sept. 22 ended weeks of trimming and recalculating totals.
No one appeared to speak at the public hearing for the budget or the tax revenue request.
In the end, the 2026-27 budget seeks $10.61 million in property tax revenue, with $9.91 million of that for the general fund and the other $700,000 for the debt services fund. This drops the operating budget by 2.8 percent.
The total is a bit higher than the $10.5 million property tax revenue request the county had anticipated at its Sept. 4 meeting after it had shaved dollars off of budget items and the county’s reserve fund to comply with the growth caps established by the Nebraska Legislature.
Seward County Clerk Brandy Johnson said in a later interview that the higher total is primarily because county officials were able to add some of the reserve funds back into the budget and remain within the allowable growth lid.
The 9.39 percent increase in property valuations across the county and the county’s budget trimming add up to a tax rate of $0.233397 per $100 of assessed valuation.
Other county funding sources include state and federal allocations, grants and fees.
Planning regulations
discussed
Just four people spoke at the commissioners’ public hearing for the new zoning regulations, and Chair Misty Ahmic said the board would not vote on the regulations until later in the year due to additional changes being made in the new document.
Keith Marvin of Marvin Consulting, which helped the county draft the new zoning regulations, spoke about the changes made to date in the zoning regulations being considered, which are also outlined on a PowerPoint document available on the Seward County Planning and Zoning website.
He described the proposed planning document as modernized, more structured and stricter than the existing regulations. It also includes new sections on wind and solar energy and battery energy storage.
While the proposed regulations include a definition of data centers, Marvin said it does not include regulations pending the county’s moratorium on those developments.
Ahmic said that moratorium would continue until the county has concluded water and other studies related to such operations.
Sara Van Cura raised questions about possible inconsistencies in the zoning document’s language on setbacks, and Jim Schulz and Jessica Kolterman spoke to encourage regulations that would support growth and development of agricultural livestock operations.
Doug Yoder asked commissioners to consider ways to be more flexible on acreage regulations, citing the prohibitive nature of the minimum five-acre requirement and rules that keep some land that is difficult or expensive to farm from being developed as acreages.
He said that allowing more people to build homes in eastern Seward County could increase tax revenues in the area.
Also on Sept. 22, the commissioners:
• Approved an $11,800 annual service agreement with Tek84 Intercept Whole Body Security Scanning at the Seward County Detention Center.
• Authorized renewal of a $106,126 Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc., annual contract for the detention center, reflecting a 6.08 percent rate increase.
• Approved a Norris Public Power application to bore under 224th Road north of Van Dorn Road in Township 10.
• Meeting as the board of equalization approved 13 tax list corrections.
