OSWEGO — The Labette County Commission on Monday agreed to pursue making changes in 911 addresses where several Amish homes have been built.
The commission’s action only applies to the 911 address, which would be used by emergency responders should they be called there. County Counselor Brian Johnson said the U.S. Postal Service sets mailing addresses. In many instances, the 911 address is the same as the mailing address, especially in cities.
In rural areas, the county’s 911 addressing process starts with smaller numbers on the west and the addresses get larger traveling east. The same is true for addresses in the south that start small and get larger as you travel north.
In a mile section, 911 Director Brandy Scott told commissioners that addresses start with 00 and go as high as 99 depending on where the driveway is located. Those numbers get larger if the road has more than a mile between crossroads.
The issue relates to certain Amish houses and an Amish school on Irving Road. The address of 24051 Irving is the location of the long driveway and other houses were built on the same property and share that driveway. The other houses received other addresses. The school, which is to the north of that driveway, had a smaller address compared to the last home built off of 24051’s driveway.
Scott’s concern is if a deputy or ambulance were called to this area and the drivers are searching for, as an example, 24063 Irving. The driver would travel north on Irving past 24051 and not find the house, which actually is the last house
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built near the other homes on the shared driveway at 24051 Irving.
The next question is how to address the school, which is north of the driveway using 24051 Irving. It could not have an address smaller than 24063.
Scott suggested giving the homes that share the driveway at 24051 Irving letters after that address, which is consistent with other areas of the county when several houses share a driveway. This would mean that the houses would have a 911 address of 24051 A, or 24051 B. Any new houses would be another letter of the alphabet until they are built between those in place now. If that happens, the houses will have to be readdressed again.
Scott also suggested that the school would have the address of 24055 Irving.
After more discussion, commissioners voted to support the proposed changes offered by Scott. The next step is to notify the landowners about the 911 addressing change.
Budget
The commission also approved the 2026 budget and revenue neutral rate for the county. The mill rate is lower in 2026 when compared to this year’s mill rate.
There was some discussion about county operations by those attending the hearing that preceded the vote on the budget, but little of it dealt with the finances presented.
The commission at one point looked at raising the property tax rate by 5 mills because of increased costs. After working through the budgets by fund and line item, the commission agreed to set the mill rate at 58.428 to support the county’s 2026 budget. The mill rate for this year’s budget is 58.892.
The county will bring in an estimated $9,493,838 from this tax levy, and the county’s total spending authority is $18,259,011 for 2026.
These numbers are based on the county’s total valuation of $162,486,340, which is about $5 million higher than the valuation used for 2025 budgets. The mill rate is slightly lower, but the valuation increase means every mill levied will bring in slightly more money.
The owner of a $100,000 house in the county will pay $6 less in 2026 to support county operations. The 2025 mill rate cost that homeowner $677.26 to support county operations. In 2026, that amount will drop to $671.92, as long as the value of the home did not increase.
The county would have had to levy a mill rate of 57.093 for 2026 to raise the same amount from property taxes as in 2025, which is called the revenue neutral rate.
Commission Chairman Vince Schibi said everyone had to give a little to make the budget work for 2026.
