HERMANN – A proposed total property tax rate of .3949 cents per $100 assessed valuation for Gasconade County could be acted on Thursday morning by the County Commission.

This is a small bump from the 2023 actual rate for the two funds of .3931, which apparently reflects the 7.2-percent increase in the total assessed valuation of property this year in the county.

The public hearing on the proposed rate is set for 9:30 tomorrow morning as part of the week Commission session.

The General Revenue Fund provides the bulk of the money for the day-to-day operations of county government, including employees’ salaries and benefits, utilities, insurance coverage, supplies and many other items. This year, personal property has been assessed at $70,717,641 while real estate has been assessed at $188,098,510. Those numbers compare to the 2023 assessed valuations of $69,919,749 and $185,731,600 for personal and real estate, respectively.

This year, the proposed rate for the General Revenue Fund is .1408 per $100 assessed value. This rate would produce an estimated $429,525.

The county’s Road & Bridge Fund has similar assessed valuations for personal and real property – $69,769,776 and $185,516,390, respectively. That compares to the 2023 assessed valuations of $68,918,040 and $183,158,590.

For this year’s tax bills, the proposed rate for the Road & Bridge Fund is.2541 per $100 assessed valuation. That amount would generate an estimated $754,435.

The total property tax revenue for 2024 is estimated to be $1,183,960. It should be noted that both the General Revenue Fund and the Road & Bridge Fund benefit from money produced by sales taxes and other sources, including property taxes paid by railroads and utilities.

Meanwhile, at last week’s Commission session, County Clerk Lesa Lietzow said the county’s involvement in an incident involving a hijacked health insurance premium payment – which resulted in county employees being without coverage for a week – has concluded, even though the probe into the matter is continuing.

As reported in last week’s edition of the Gasconade County Republican, the premium payment check of about $25,000 was “whitewashed,” as Lietzow described it by someone, somewhere and used to pay a debt at a credit union. She said it has been determined that the person responsible for the sidetracked checked is not someone working for United Healthcare, the county’s health insurance provider.

“The bank is still investigating,” Lietzow told the Commission.

The County Clerk’s Office learned of the pilfered payment and the resulting cancellation of coverage right as Lietzow and her staff were busy conducting and wrapping up this year’s Primary Elections – no small task in itself. The county clerk was pulled away from her duties as chief elections official a bit as she tried to unravel the mystery of the canceled insurance coverage. “That was more of a problem than the elections,” she said.

But she was able to achieve something many in the courthouse were skeptical of: Lietzow won an admission of responsibility from United Healthcare and a letter of apology from the company to the county employees who unknowingly were without coverage for a week. The clerk quickly was able to have the coverage reinstated.

Also, she said, if any county employees had to pay out of pocket for medication or treatment during the time the coverage was canceled, they can obtain a refund for their expense. They can get their money back filling out a form. For more information, those employees should contact the County Clerk’s Office.