Linn County supervisors finalize budget in 4-1 vote

When it comes to Linn County's budget, Supervisor Brent Oleson is on a philosophical island.

The oft-outnumbered Republican glumly cast his futile dissenting vote Tuesday as his four Democrat colleagues finalized a 2010-2011 budget in which spending grows by 3.5 percent and tax collections by 5.7 percent even as revenue is down, the Cedar Rapids school district is toying with a 25 percent levy rate increase and the city is dipping into reserves to freeze taxes on commercial and industrial property.

“It's a tax increase, plain and simple. It's a spending increase, plain and simple. We managed instead of led,” Oleson said. “We did nothing innovative.”

The budget, which won't be certified until March 15, adds $27 to the property tax bill of an urban resident who owns a house worth $200,000. The county tax bill for them will be $570, up from $543 last year. County taxes typically account for roughly a fifth of a Cedar Rapids resident's tax bill.

Rural residents with homes worth $200,000 will have to pay $918 in taxes to the county, up from $882 last year. The supervisors raised the countywide levy rate by 12 cents, and taxes are going up anyway because the valuations and the residential rollback will rise.

The county's commercial and industrial taxes will be up 2 percent, billing the owner of a business property worth $300,000 for $1,822. Those taxes are still down from 2009-2010, after which the supervisors cut the levy rate by 19 cents.

The four Democrats on the board say cuts to the budget would eliminate critical county services.

“There's nothing innovative about cutting. The reality is, in a post-flood environment, we are still in the recovery phase,” Supervisor Linda Langston said. “We thought it was important to secure a critical level of service needs.”

County revenue - particularly at the Linn County Jail - is down about $2 million for the coming fiscal year, forcing the supervisors into a choice between cutting the proposed budget and raising taxes.

Some departments will be cut. Juvenile Detention, which has gotten less traffic in recent years, lost $150,000 in its budget, and the Youth Shelter will be eliminated.

The county's budget is $121 million, about $55 million of which is paid for by local taxpayers.