Review: Budget Overview for Recommended 2023/24 Fiscal Year (Friday meeting)
Meeting Date:
Friday, February 3, 2023
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Rachel's Council Review |
As usual for the review, my comments are in red and italicized in the context of the latest Council Preview by Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen.
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Usually some of the agenda items will have a period where members of the public may briefly speak to Council.
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Send email to MayorCouncil@AmesCityCouncil.org
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The Ames City Council meets on Friday at 2:00 p.m. at City Hall. The agenda includes the following (and much more). Note that you can generally click on individual agenda items below to get the full staff report or other explanation.
- 1. Budget Overview for Recommended 2023/24 Fiscal Year. (see city finance web site for updated documents). The City Manger's letter to council offers a good summary of the budget.
At the budget overview meeting, council started by reviewing the Special Reports for FY 2023/2024 document, which includes information on property tax rates, the tax levy breakdowns, property valuation changes, current and proposed debt service levels, and more. We also covered the potential impact to our city budget from SSB 1056, which is a bill working its way through the state legislature that would impact this years budget and force us to adjust our levy rate or cut services to make up $775,242 of lost revenue. Lastly, we reviewed the Fund Summaries (Pages 287 to 360 of the Budget), including the Enterprise Funds, which are for our operations that are financed and operated in a manner where the cost of providing services is recovered through user charges.
The Special Reports document has a number of great tables and charts to look at comparing this years' budget to previous years. I would personally recommend looking at Property Tax Levy and Valuation Comparisons to other Iowa Cities (Page 3), the Tax Levy Breakdown With Utilities Excise Tax Included (Page 4), and the Property Tax Cost of Services per Residence 3-Year Comparison (page 25). These pages have an excellent breakdown of how Ames taxes compare to peer cities in Iowa, how each levy compares to previous years and adds up to our total levy rate, and an example of how your property taxes break down to fund various city services.
Thanks for reading,
Rachel Junck
Ames City Council, Ward 4