Iola’s 2024 budget will likely require a small increase in property taxes and trash collection fees, City Council members said Monday.
Another spirited debate at Monday’s meeting led to a poll at the conclusion of the meeting to determine what avenue Council members favored to generate about $290,000, necessary to bring the city’s general fund into balance.
The Council was given three options.
The first, favored by Iola City Administrator Matt Rehder, would eschew any kind of solid waste fee increase, and instead hike property taxes by about 5 mills.
Rehder’s contention was that the property tax obligations would be less for a majority of property owners than it would to pay more for trash collection services.
To wit, the owner of a $100,000 home would pay roughly $57.50 more per year in property taxes with a 5-mill increase, Rehder said, vs. the $72 a person would pay if his trash fees were hiked $6 a month.
Carl Slaugh took the opposite tack, saying Iola’s lower tax levy makes the city more attractive for potential developers.
He suggested the city make reductions in other areas of the budget, avoid any kind of tax hike, and increase trash fees $3 a month.
However, Councilman Nickolas Kinder said that strategy is akin to “kicking the can down the road” and leaving some departments short of funds to put aside for such things as new equipment.
Slaugh also questioned the city’s reliance even more for 2024 on transfers from the city’s electric reserves into the general fund — which has traditionally been done in an effort to keep property taxes low — while avoiding any kind of transfers from the water fund.
The water fund transfer isn’t possible in 2024, Rehder replied, because of the city’s annual bond payment for the water treatment plant, about $600,000, plus other unforeseen costs to the Oak Street water tower, which underwent a full-scale renovation recently.
The consensus among the Council members — Slaugh was the only dissenter — amounted to a compromise: a $3 a month solid waste increase and a 2.5-mill property tax increase.
Rehder will put those figures together and bring them back to the Council at their July 24 meeting to schedule a public hearing in August for community members to get an opportunity to share their thoughts or concerns.
IN OTHER news, Council members approved a bid from Environmental & Process Systems, Lenexa, to replace a sewer lift station pump at Iola’s Riverside Park. The bid of $89,770 was the lowest of four received.
The Council also accepted a bid from Ray’s Metal Depot of LaHarpe — the only company to submit an offer — to demolish condemned homes at 224 N. State St., 406 E. Lincoln St., 505 S. Fourth St. and 617 S. Fourth St., for a combined price of $11,150.
