Cedar Rapids council quietly passes new budget; property taxes going up for homeowners

CEDAR RAPIDS - Without comment, the City Council last night unanimously approved its budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, a budget that includes an 8-percent property-tax increase for homeowners while holding the line on taxes for the commercial and industrial sectors.

Three components factor in the actual property taxes that property owners pay and a jurisdiction benefits from - the jurisdiction's tax rate, changes in a property's value and change in a state rollback formula, which determines what percentage of a property's value is subject to tax.

This budget season, Cedar Rapids council members emphasized that the city's new budget keeps the city's tax levy rate, $15.22 per $1,000 of valuation, the same as in the current budget year. They have emphasized, too, that it is a change in valuations and in the state rollback that they say are to blame for the higher residential property taxes. Overall, the value of the city's residential property has increased 4.3 percent, according to city figures.

A year ago, in contrast, the council did not emphasize the tax rate when the city's tax rate stayed the same and residential taxes went up 2.89 percent.

In the new budget year, the owner of a $150,000 home will see the city's portion of the overall property-tax bill - which is about 40 percent of the total with Linn County and the school district also getting sizable shares of the revenue - increase by $84.

A typical homeowner also will see a 4.8-percent increase in the city's utility bill for the city's package of utility services - water, water pollution control and sanitary sewer, storm sewer and solid waste and recycling.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz has called the new budget, in large part, a “status-quo” one.

The new budget keeps the number of full-time city employees at about 1,220 and adds an assistant city manager, the cost of which will come from eliminating two vacant positions, an administrative assistant job and a planner job.

The city's union employees will see a 2.5-percent increase in wages while the city's non-bargaining employees will receive a 0.5-percent pay increase. Eligible employees also receive a 2.5-percent, pay-step increase for longevity, and non-bargaining employees have more pay steps than union employees.

Revenue from the city's much-discussed traffic enforcement cameras will offset the additional $1.2 million the city must pay into the state pension system for police officers and firefighters over and above the $4.2 million it pays this budget year. The $5.4-million figure going into the pension system in the next budget year is an amount equal to 24.76 percent of the wages paid police officers and firefighters.

The new budget also includes $200,000 to beautify the city's gateways, $350,000 for contingency uses and $350,000 in a first time expense to operate the former federal courthouse, which is being renovated into the city's new City Hall.

The new budget includes the sale of $10 million in bonds for a parking ramp near the new federal courthouse and $8.7 million for a new parking ramp at the Physicians' Clinic of Iowa's new medical building. Future property-tax revenue from the PCI project will pay off debt for that parking ramp.