The overview
With street maintenance listed as a top priority for the city’s 2024 strategic plan, council members have considered increasing the city’s property tax rate to fund transportation projects. This comes after a Sept. 21 meeting, when council members voted to scrap a plan to charge property owners street maintenance fees.
Zooming in
Mayor Mike Snyder urged council members to weigh the city’s needs versus the officials’ wants.
“There is not a need for 40 additional [employees]. That is a want,” Snyder said. “I would argue roads [are] a need.”
Proposed transportation costs for FY 2023-24 amount to over $40 million.
Zooming Out
According to the proposed budget, should City Council vote to use the remaining funds from the 2018 voter-approved road bond, residents can expect to see a new road bond package on a ballot in 2024.
The $351 million proposed for this year’s budget nearly doubles last year’s. The city conducted workshops and community surveys to determine funding allocations for additional city staffing, park development and other capital improvement projects.
Council members are also expected to make the final call on a property tax rate for FY 2023-24, after setting the proposed rate to $0.45 per $100 valuation Aug. 31. The vote will take place after council repealed a previous resolution setting the proposed rate at a no-new-revenue rate of $0.402114. The no-new-revenue rate would have raised the same amount of property tax revenue as last year without accounting for any new properties.
