The Door County Board unanimously passed the county’s 2026 budget with no significant changes to its final draft or last-minute comments from the public during its Nov. 12 meeting.
As a result, the tax levy will rise a little but the tax rate will drop. What that means to your property tax bill from the county (not including the tax rate for your city, village, town or school district) depends on the property’s assessed value and how much it changed, if at all, in the past year.
The county plans to spend about $129.3 million in 2026, with $32.9 million coming from the tax levy (the amount generated by the county property tax) and $96.4 million in revenues. The expenditures will increase 14.4%, from about $113 million in 2025, and revenues also are increasing by a similar amount, from $81 million in ’25.
The amount in the tax levy for 2026 is 2.7% higher than this year, rising from $32 million in 2025 to $32.9 million. However, the equalized value of taxable properties in the county was assessed at $14.86 billion, an 12.4% increase from the past year’s $13.22 billion (thanks mainly to continued increasing demand for housing and new construction).
Thus, the tax rate for 2026 will drop 8.66%, from $2.42 to $2.21 per $1,000 of assessed equalized property value, or $442 instead of $484 on a $200,000 property.
The only major amendment from the final draft budget that came about in the board meeting was a shift of about $763,000 to the capital improvement projects (CIP) fund, a change that doesn’t affect the tax rate or levy.
The money comes from changes to the county’s health insurance coverage for its employees that was made following the initial draft of the budget, which would have seen the cost of the plan increase 16.3%. Subsequent negotiations with the carrier brought about changes that included different deductibles and the addition of a family savings plan, bringing down the increase to 3.6%.
With the amendment, the resulting $763,000 in savings will go to the CIP fund, specifically toward construction of a radio tower for the county’s coming E911 public safety upgrade. The tower also is responsible for most of the $15 million to $16 million increases in overall expenditures and revenues, as $13 million was transferred from the county’s reserve fund to be applied to the tower.
The finalized 2026 budget, which passed 19-0 with two supervisors absent, is similar to recent years in what County Administrator Ken Pabich previously said to the Advocate was essentially a “continuation budget.” Several job positions with the county were reclassified or had their duties modified but the only new position is a security deputy at the county jail.
And major capital improvement projects in the budget are previously planned or ongoing projects that were part of previous budgets and carried forward, along with the usual road maintenance. One of the larger projects is much-needed replacement of the north-south runway and three adjoining taxiways at Cherryland Airport, along with a building for snow removal equipment. Pabich said federal and state funds appear very likely to be available for the almost all the cost of these airport projects, given in the budget as $7.7 million for the runway, $1.43 million for the taxiways and $2.15 million for the building.
“I think it’s a very good budget for us,” Pabich said after its passage, “not only for next year. It also sets us on a good path for the future.”
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Door County tax levy up a little, tax rate down in final 2026 budget
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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