Iola City Administrator Matt Rehder envisions an eventful — and productive — 2023 for the city.
Rehder, who is nearing his second anniversary as city administrator, sat down with the Register for a “state of the city” discussion, and what he sees topping the to-do list for the upcoming 12 months.
Heading the agenda is continuing to put pieces in place for a complete rebuild of U.S. 54 through the heart of town.
The project, which will likely exceed $10 million, is still a couple years away, but there is plenty to do beforehand.
Engineering studies revealed to the City Council last year gave a true figure of the road’s deteriorating base.
“You could put a new 2-inch overlay, and it will make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but doesn’t fix anything,” Rehder said. “And then in a few months, you’ll start to see cracks again. There are parts of the road that are almost literally falling from underneath itself.”
As the timeline materializes, next up will be to reach out to business owners and residents along the route to spell out how traffic disruptions will be tackled.
On top of pinpointing costs, the city will discuss financing — it almost certainly will be funded through a 30-year revenue bond — and get a better feeling of the project’s timeline.
How to pay off the bond will be a central part of the discussions, with sales tax revenues one of the first considerations.
Using property taxes “is the very last resort,” Rehder said. “I don’t see that happening.”
SPEAKING of property taxes, the Council’s decision last year to boost the city’s levy by about 6.5 mills — the largest such single-year increase in recent memory — has given the city’s general fund a much-needed boost for 2023 and beyond, Rehder said.
“We’re in a better spot financially now than we’ve been since I’ve been here,” he said, “but I think we can be better. We got a lot to do. We have a lot of bills to pay.
“The general fund has taken some punches in terms of revenue that we had to make up for,” Rehder continued, noting such things as transfers from the gas fund were a fraction of what they’d been in the past because of shortfalls in that fund. (An increase in gas rates last year has helped replenish that fund.)
Accordingly, previous increases in water rates have replenished Iola’s water fund, finally making it sufficient to meet its annual bond payments on top of regular maintenance costs. (Side note: The city is within two years of having the water plant paid off.)
And with the electric and wastewater funds also “healthy,” Rehder said there will likely be no need to look at utility rate hikes of any type in 2023.
