TR Photo by Robert Mahary City of Marshalltown Finance Director Diana Steiner, left, and Marshalltown Public Library Director Sarah Rosenblum, right, address the City Council during a budget discussion at Monday night’s special meeting. The library faces potential cuts due to the passage of House File 718, which would have repealed and consolidated its voter-approved special levy.
After discussing the city administrator position and the capital improvement plan, the Marshalltown City Council assessed the property valuations — which it ultimately received from the county — and how they will impact the overall budget picture during Monday night’s special meeting.
According to a memo prepared by city Finance Director Diana Steiner, the assessment within Marshalltown increased 16.71 percent – $310,242,279 – to $2,166,544,737 for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1.
“Normally, we would be jumping for joy with such a huge valuation. However, due to the state imposing certain restrictions on us, the rollback, for example, the residential rollback increased from 56 per cent in FY24 to 46 per cent in FY25. So that was a huge success that we had,” Steiner said. “Backfill for commercial and industrial properties continues to decrease by $46,000 per year, and our TIF increase also reduces our assessments.”
He then explained the effects of House File 718, a bill that would remove the special levy that funds the public library, municipal band, Marshalltown Arts & Civic Center (MACC) and emergency levy in Marshalltown and replace them with a consolidated rate. replaces. Under the previous law, the city would have generated $8.8 million, Steiner said. The consolidated rate is actually slightly higher, but the incoming dollar amount has already been reduced by $248,000.
“We knew we were probably going to be impacted, which we did on House File 718. In addition to other items for expenses, we saw salaries going up, our health insurance going up, our property insurance going up, ” He said.
$100,000 for MACC and $8,000 for the band have been put into the regular budget, which “accounts for everything they normally eat” in addition to increases in utilities and other products, Steiner said.
“When it’s all said and done, we lost $1.1 million,” he said. “It is not uncommon. We come to you every year. We are always at a loss when we put all the numbers together, so we want to work on this and would like you to help us with some things and in a future meeting you can put it in ink instead of pencil. Are.
He then presented some options to balance the budget, including $201,000 in unused American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, reducing the percentage of hotel/motel tax paid to the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce from 56 percent to 50 percent to $36,000 can be put back. General Fund, reallocating some or all of the $250,000 in automated traffic enforcement (ATE) revenues currently earmarked for community beautification and nuisance abatement and using the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST).
From there, attention turned to potential spending cuts, and Steiner suggested closing the library on Sundays due to the loss of the special levy (currently, it is open for four hours). Councilman Greg Nichols asked what the busiest and least busy days of operation are, and that brought Library Director Sarah Rosenblum to the stage.
“I’m afraid I don’t have that information, and I apologize. Me. I will tell you, when we first opened on Sundays, Sundays were the busiest hours per hour. We were only open for three hours, Rosenblum said. “When we were opened up after COVID, we really saw it. We now know that Saturday is actually busier than Sunday. We took a look at it. I’ll have to get other information for you, but we can do that with our door count.”
In Rosenblum’s view, there was not necessarily any rhyme or reason as to which days were busy and which were not, and it could depend on the weather or what was happening in the community. Currently, they are seeing an influx of visitors due to the tax season.
Steiner said the volunteer coordinator position could also be eliminated to save $34,000 along with any other costs allocated from the original levy, which amounts to $251,000 annually. No longer operating the bookmobile, known as MOBI, will save $9,000, Steiner said, and the book collection can also be transferred to CIP. Rosenblum noted that this was a common practice in the libraries where he worked in California (and also used it in Cedar Rapids and Marion) and could relieve some of the strain on the general fund.
Steiner asked about finding another revenue source for the MACC and municipal bands and also mentioned two full-time equivalent (FTE) vacancies, primarily for the police department, to save some money, including a three percent cost of living adjustment ( There was a delay in the implementation of COLA). ) to save $97,500 for non-union employees, the currently vacant Housing and Community Development Director position is being kept open to save approximately $73,000 in the general fund because it is partially grant funded but is also considering How it will affect the workload and pay grades of other employees.
Other possible items include increasing fees and changing the timing for the Summer Blast and Aquatic Center or leaving other positions vacant. Overall, that savings would exceed $500,000.
As Steiner asked for further direction, Councilman Jeff Schneider suggested “making some adjustments” to using ARPA and LOST and taking some items out of the general fund and using a different revenue source to cover them. Proposed. After seconding the motion, Councilor Barry Kell, who was communicating remotely, said the council’s specified use part of LOST seemed “very appropriate” for the situation.
“One, we are basically a month behind in starting the budget process. As council, we need to remember that voters in Marshalltown approved those special fees, even though the state has repealed them. We need to recognize that the community showed support and told us there was a need for this, so there’s an opportunity to honor it,” Kell said. “And then third, I know the composition of the council has changed since we approved this, but I would encourage the council to remain disciplined with the use of ATE funds. It was presented and sold to the public that it was a public safety issue, not a budget backfill or revenue source. And it appears that, in a very short period of time, we are walking away from our commitment to the city. For all those reasons, I support the proposal put forward by Jeff Schneider.
Councilman Mike Ladehoff agreed with Kell and Schneider and said it was “very appropriate” to use LOST to fill the library and MACC building, describing them as community services that are much used and needed. Are.
As City Clerk Alicia Hunter began taking a roll call vote on Schneider’s proposal, Nichols asked for clarification on whether they were locking themselves into anything specific by passing it. Mayor and Acting City Administrator Joel Greer said this was merely a staff directive, and that more changes were likely to be made between now and when the budget is formally voted on and finalized.
The roll call vote to proceed as indicated passed by a 4-3 tally with Kell, Ladehoff, Nichols and Schneider in favor and Al Hupp, Gary Thompson and Mark Mitchell opposed. The council agreed to schedule another special meeting for Monday, February 5 at 5:30 pm to continue work on the budget.
Greer indicated that he would be out of town for that meeting, and before adjourning, he advised the council to be “careful” about handling situations involving the daily operations of the city and city staff and indicated that He will ask the staff to consider revising it. Public Comment Policy for future meetings.
“At special meetings like this, we don’t usually do that, but I want you to be alert that I will ask staff to consider doing what Des Moines and some other cities have done in terms of public comment. Have done.” Greer said. “We moved it from the end to the beginning so that people who just want to come and talk with me about a particular thing don’t have to sit here until 6:20 to make their point. Because we have a bunch of agenda items, I would ask the staff to consider changing our rules of procedure to allow comment on any item included on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting and perhaps Increase the time from three minutes to five minutes. minutes. I think that will speed up our meetings and we’ll see if the council goes along with it. But as long as we have a pretty full house tonight, I want to tell you that this is what I’m considering doing.”
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Contact Robert Mahari
At 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or
[email protected].
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