Budget Hearings
 |
David's Council Preview |
https://www.youtube.com/ameschannel12
https://www.cityofames.org/channel12
or watch the meeting live on Mediacom Channel 12
TO REACH THE MAYOR AND ENTIRE CITY COUNCIL:
Send email to MayorCouncil@AmesCityCouncil.org
(Note that emails to elected officials are generally subject to Iowa Open Records requests)
The Ames City Council is conducting budget hearings on February 2nd, February 3rd and February 4th, starting at at 5:15 pm each day on Zoom. The detailed agenda for the three meetings is available here (starting on page 2), but here's an abbreviated plan:
- Tuesday: Library; all Water utilities; Resource Recovery; Public Works, Traffic, and Airport; General Governmental services
- Wednesday: Parks & Recreation; Electrical Utility; Police and Fire services
- Thursday: Cy-Ride, General Governmental Services, and Housing Programs
On our meeting last Friday, we went over the essential numbers that make up the City's budget requests (property valuations, tax levies, funds). The budget hearings this week dive into each of the City's departments to discuss the main services they provide, any changes underway, and to answer any questions about the department's budget requests. The draft budget is available here (all 353 pages). Again, the highlights of the budget as a whole are available in the City Manager's Budget Letter, which is also right at the beginning of the draft budget.
You might not realize that the budget is the go-to document for describing and quantifying the City services generally, not just a big list of the dollars involved. For example, the Street Surface Cleaning section (pp. 118-119) shows that during 2019-2020, the City cleaned 5,421 miles of residential streets and 360 miles of Business District streets, with over 90% of residents rating the cleaning as "good or very good," and paid for this service through Road Use tax.
The pie chart below is a useful reminder that the City (in green) determines and receives only 1/3 of your property tax bill.
Under the proposed budget, a residential property with assessed value of $100,000 will be charged $557 in City property tax. The chart below shows how much of that $557 tax goes to the listed activities (in dollars). This includes both the operating costs and the debt service costs for that activity for the year. For example, the $68 shown for the library includes paying off a portion of the $20 million bonds used to upgrade the library that voters approved in 2011. In future years, once those bonds are paid off, the share of tax dollars going towards library services will reduce accordingly -- all other things being equal.
Here's the big list of budget documents for the next fiscal year:
- City Manager Budget Letter 2021-2022
- Budget Overview 2021-2022 (Powerpoint presented to Council last Friday)
- Draft Budget 2021-2022
- Special Budget Reports to Council (levies, property valuation summaries, abatements, Town Budget Meeting minutes)
- Public Art Commission (budget request)
- ASSET Recommendations (budget request)
- Commission On The Arts Recommendations (budget request)
- Outside Funding Requests
Thanks for reading,
David Martin
Ames City Council, Ward 3