2014-15 Budget

Wanted to chime in a little more on our budget. First off, there is something that annoys me about the municipal budget process in Iowa. At the first meeting in March, we will have our official Public Hearing on the budget that we are required to have. The thing is, we pretty much have to have it nailed down at that meeting. And even if the citizens all show up with pitch forks protesting it, we have to approve it then, based on the publication rules.

So if you want your say (as the public), you need to do it at the prep meetings in January and February. So the budget is pretty much put together, we just need to dot some more "i"s and so on at the next meeting on the 19th.

As mentioned in a previous post, this was an easy budget session. With our projected revenue, we really didn't need to do any large whacking to get the budget to balance. All of our boards and departments that gave us numbers, gave us reasonable requests. So at the first go-around, we were already at a surplus.

Some of the things that we budgeted was for a 3% raise for city employees. Doesn't mean we give them that, but that is what we budgeted. We were able to fund many street projects, for asphalt upgrades that have been on the planning board. The Park Board is going to get some more money for capital upgrades, and the Pool Board will be able to take care of fixing up the tennis court a bit, as well as some expansion in the south deck area. Some stuff we have to pay the bill for what it is--like police protection. We also continued to put money aside in a capital fund for the fire department for a future fire truck. Another set aside is $50,000 towards our new city hall. This is the 3rd year we have set aside money for that project. I'm hoping we can get that knocked out in the 14-15 fiscal year. We are not on the fast track, as we are trying to get some grants, and that takes time.

There are 3 sections of the budget, where we run like a business. That is for water, sewer, and garbage. No tax money goes for those (right now). I say right now, because if we borrow for water or sewer upgrades, and choose to put the cost to property taxes, instead of user fees, then of course there is tax money to them. But anyway, typically the cost to run those departments comes strictly from user fees. And garbage is simply in/out. Everyone pays the city for garbage, and we contract it out to Stone Sanitation and pay them.

So we will have around a $1.4 million budget, and around $600,000 of it is from business operations. On other in/out money, we get around $125,000 on gas tax money from the state that has to go to road maintenance/construction.

So anyway, after all of that, it looks like we are going to be able to lower our tax levy this year. As a property owner in town, lower levies are a good thing. Not a lot, but we probably be able to get to a $9.97 per assessed thousand from the current year's $10.07. Again, don't forget, the city only takes about 1/3 of your property tax dollars, the school takes about half, and also assesses the income tax surcharge as well.

So anyway, even in our small town, we still will fund nice parks, library, pool, have reasonably decent roads, and still be able to lower our tax levy, and have about the 3rd or 4th lowest tax levy of the 14 communities in Story County. A lot of people have a hand in that, and that news is something I like to tout.