Average C.R. homeowner to pay eight percent more in property tax

CEDAR RAPIDS - Elected officials in the process of passing a budget have plenty of numbers and differing views of those numbers to highlight when they tell you what kind of job they've done.

Most of the current members of the Cedar Rapids City Council, for instance, went on and on this week about how their new budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 keeps the city's tax rate the same as in the current budget year: $15.22 per $1,000 valuation.

They made much less mention of the fact that property values, upon which the tax is based, have gone up and a state “rollback” formula has changed in a way that will raise an average homeowners taxes by almost 8 percent in the new budget. That provides the council with that much more revenue to use to pay the city's bills. Of course, the council can lower the city's tax rate.

City employee health insurance cost

Likewise this week, Mayor Ron Corbett addressed a complaint continually leveled at public employees - that they pay far less for health insurance than most in the private sector. Corbett said Cedar Rapids city union employees were paying 60 percent more in health premiums over the life of their three-year contracts than they had been paying.

There is no dispute that the trend is for Cedar Rapids city employees to contribute more for their health insurance. However, there are also other numbers to focus on in addition to “60 percent more” to help residents in private-sector jobs compare what they are paying for health insurance with what city employees are paying.

In the current City Hall budget year, for instance, city bargaining-unit employees with family health insurance coverage pay $100 a month of the $1,440 monthly premium, or 6.9 percent of the overall coverage cost.

This is progress: In the last budget year, those same employees paid $60 a month for family coverage, or 4.2 percent of the $1,440 monthly premium. In 2005, they paid $10 a month or 1.4 percent. In 2012, bargaining-unit employees will pay $130 a month for family coverage and $160 a month the next year.

About 800 city employees are in bargaining units and another 400 are not. The latter group currently pays more for health-care coverage - $216 a month for family coverage or 15 percent of the cost.