Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Tax Relief topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lee County supervisors approve code changes to elderly and disabled real-estate tax relief
Summary
Supervisors voted to adopt ordinance language aligning tax-relief rules to the county fiscal year and to raise income and net-worth thresholds for elderly and disabled exemptions; staff said the changes will not affect the state-mandated disabled veteransexemption.
The Lee County Board of Supervisors voted Jan. 20 to accept proposed code changes that align the countys real-estate tax-relief ordinance for elderly and disabled residents with the countys fiscal year and raise qualifying income and net-worth thresholds.
County staff told the board the rewrite is intended to correct language that remained tied to the calendar year after the county moved billing to a fiscal-year basis last year and to update thresholds that have not changed in some time. "This would help bring us more in line with our neighboring localities," a staff member said, noting small Social Security increases had unintentionally pushed some residents out of eligibility.
During public comment, Christopher Bell of Jonesville asked whether the proposed changes would impose an income limit on the 100% disabled veteransexemption. A staff member replied that the veterans exemption is a state constitutional program and would not be altered by the county ordinance changes. "That program is mandated through the state," staff said.
After clarifying that the county changes would apply only to elderly and nonveteran disabled exemptions and would not reduce benefits granted under the states veteransexemption, a supervisor moved to accept the code revisions. The motion was seconded and carried by voice vote.
The board opened a public hearing on the revisions as part of its agenda and approved the ordinance changes the same night. The county did not provide an effective date in the meeting discussion.
Next steps identified by staff included publishing the updated ordinance language and communicating the new thresholds to the public and affected departments.
