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City tax rate dips, but dollar amount rises
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · April 10, 2024
Your tax rate may go down by 3.1 percent, but your total taxes will also rise by 3.27 percent, according to the City of West Branch.
City Administrator Adam Kofoed predicts that a $100,000 home in 2023-24 will be worth $125,000 in the coming fiscal year.
That 25-percent growth in taxable value should still mean a lower tax rate, even though actual taxes will increase under the city’s proposed tax levy.
At the April 4 City Council hearing on setting the maximum property tax levy for 2024-25, Kofoed said the $13.61 tax rate residents are currently paying would decrease by 42 cents per $1,000 in taxable value to $13.19.
A home worth $100,000 paid about $734 in city property taxes this year, he said. If that same home is assessed at $125,000 in the coming year, then the homeowner would pay about $758 in city property taxes. That comes to an increase of about 3.27 percent.
Homeowners recently received letters about their taxes. However, Kofoed said the Iowa Department of Management requirements for those letters could be misleading.
“Those letters were very form-written and we talked to the Department of Management to try to improve those letters,” he said. “Depending on how you read the letters, you may have thought you got a 17-percent reduction in taxes, and that is not true. It did not calculate the new assessments, which are about 25 percent.”
Homeowners last year received a 54-percent rollback on the assessed valuation; next year that will be about 46 percent.
Kofoed said those on fixed incomes — those who rely heavily on Social Security income — should be able to afford next year’s city tax increase.
“Somebody on Social Security is getting a bigger increase in income than they are paying taxes to the City of West Branch,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that there aren’t other taxing agencies. It doesn’t mean that’s a huge bump.”
Kofoed listed 39 cities either in the immediate area, or with a similar population as West Branch, and their city tax rates.
Kofoed’s information stated that 38 percent of general fund goes toward public safety, 29 percent goes toward culture and recreation, 17 percent goes to public works, 11 percent goes toward general government, and 5 percent goes toward economic development.
He said that comparable communities have the same amount — 38 percent — going toward public safety, 25 percent toward culture and recreation, 15 percent going to general government, 10 percent for public works, 7 percent for in-budget transfers, and 5 percent for economic development.
“That’s not too out of whack” with other communities, Kofoed said.
His report included a list of cuts from previous budgets to make the expenses meet revenues: cutting three part-time mowers, cutting the safety coordinator consultant, cutting recreation and library food, cutting a part-time audio/visual staffer, cutting money from the Beranek Park trail, reducing library circulation, cutting the “Old Men’s League,” cutting the tree-trimming budget — which he called “risky” — cutting portable restroom use, cutting the fireworks from Hoover’s Hometown Days, cutting the Information Technology part-time wages, eliminating inflatables from HHD, cutting the park summer camp program, cutting the park’s swim program, cutting funding to Cedar County Economic Development Corp., cutting police and fire equipment reserve funding, cutting the part-time parks & rec position, cutting one full-time librarian, and ending the building incentive program.
The city also instituted a policy that all parks and recreation programs should break even.
Kofoed noted that all of these cuts took place before coming to the decision to increase city property taxes by 3.27 percent.
“Some cuts in other communities are way worse,” the city administrator said.
Most of the city’s spending increases are due to public safety, like rebuilding the police department by setting a goal to hire up to five officers.
“West Branch, like many communities, have made hard budget cuts,” reads the report. “(The) city has been making strides to save reserve amounts.”
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