Board of Supervisor - Regular Meeting

I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I would like to welcome you all and wish you a good morning. It's a beautiful Dickinson County morning. Feel sorry for those snowbirds in Florida. Oh, hi Kim. Hi Bill.

Today uh we're having a public hearing only uh on a proposed tax levy. It won't be any motions made. We'll just we're just here to listen to the public. And with that said, I'll now open the public hearing. By the way, I believe there are sheets on the back table that list what we're looking at. Do you want to tell them to go up to the podium when they want to speak?

Oh, Jordan says she'd like you to come up to the podium if you wish to speak. I have a copy for you, Kim. All right. Good morning. Mike Fergus 5242nd Avenue. I neglected to number these so being so kind. It's just a number one through 10. if you want. Uh I'll refer to the pages. So let's go to page two. We all know it's a big topic. Huge top.

Absolutely huge. Iowa property tax reform. Basically three bills, governor, the house, and the senate. I highlighted the the key hearings of the governor's bill as well as the house bill just recently passed this last week with some amendments. Governor's bill two things are pretty significant positive very positive for our county as well as our taxpayers. Property assessment period would extend from every other year three years with the burden of proof on the assessor. This is the taxpayer and there will be some good positive adjustments to our commercial and industrial taxpayers. Positive positive news. We'll see if what this gets passed. The TF financing is to um create some more transparency, limit it to 20 year period of time for public purpose only. The House bill that was just amended, speaking with John Wills and other leaders, has four significant issues, four significant things that are positive. Cap property tax growth at 2%. Limit government reserves at 35%. Any excess would be returned to the taxpayer with lower levies or public services. And the backdoor bond issuance requires 60% voter approval in November and then simplify the property tax statement so all of us can read it and try to interpret it. page straight.

Did you know that fiscal year 2526, Dickinson County had the highest residential property tax per person in Iowa? You start on the left side of this chart. It identifies the top 10 counties, their population percentage, the top cities that live in those counties, the residential value of the property, not commercial, not industrial, not agricultural. the current tax levy rate and the current property tax amount collected. And our per person tax is 691, which is absolutely the highest in Iowa. So, we can focus on tax levies that they're not too bad, but what comes out of a customer or a taxpayers's pocket is the taxes that they pay. That data was obtained from the Iowa Department of Management, county data, cap, the county property valuation, and the county property tax rates. Page four. Fiscal year 2526 just completed. Uh the taxes for Dickens County taxpayers reveals that Dixon County property taxes that people pay represents 37 to 40% of their total spent. So if you look on the left to Spirit Lake school district is a number one taxer.

Number two is accountant and number three is a city. If you look to the right, it's Milford School District, their debt that they just took on tickets and the nice Milford city. The reason why I say that is it sometimes is uh heard that oh Dickens County is a small percentage of the total bill but in actuality what we do in Dickens County has a 37 to 40% effect on the taxpayers pocket. It's a significant deal. It's a positive deal. What we do in county government first of all leads the way. It's leadership and action what the five of you guys do, but also is a significant part to what people pay. Uh page five. Recently this was just obtained fiscal 2627 taxable valuations. This is property tax valuations. General services increase $427 million. $427 million. The rural customer, the rural customer increased $185 million. The total countywide valuation increased for this period of time was 612 million.

Put that in perspective. Let's say that you had 1,200 new homes in Dickinson County that averaged 500,000 a home. Take do the math on that. 1,200 homes. 500,000 a home would get you about $600 million. That's a pretty significant increase in our tax base that we all would be very happy to get 1,200 new homes. Our evaluations increased by that amount. Let that resonate with you. That's over half a billion dollars. In this period of time, our assessments went up. your our customers our taxpayers are to a breaking point. Let me say that again. Our customers our taxpayers are to a breaking point of taxes are too high. Taxes are creating an affordability issue in our beautiful county that you all love and I know all these people love because they're in the tenants today. There's a lot of people who love this place. It's a great place to live. Page six on the left is the numbers on the prior year property assessments.

Spiritually the number was 12 million 541 199 in revenue on a 245 and 176 levy. I'm proposing a 1.8 and a 1.6 that would bring in 10 million743601 on the new property tax valuations. 87. So if you look at number three, you're wise people. Hey Mike, how are you going to make up the difference of that a million7 because 12,541 plus the 10,73 is a shortfall. Well, guess what? We're blessed with not quite $30 million in our fund balance report. So, I proposed to get to the 1.8 to the 1.6. We leverage that taxpayer money of a million797590 to pay for that shortfall and reduce tax levies and do the right thing for the taxpayer. Thank Jake. Top line shows the uh fund balance reserve for the last few years. I highlighted in green the last two lines.

Our 1231 fund balance amount was 29,456,289. Our most current one, we don't have the end of March yet, is 29,675, 343. Look at the bottom line. Your total your total budgeted expenditures for fiscal year 2526 was $29 million. So I guess you had over 100% reserve the budget. Am I complaining? No, we have reserved. I am now asking for fairness for the taxpayers who paid that money for us to serve and protect the customers of Dick County. Please. This sheet just shows the revenue sources of the money coming in and going out. I just gave you the revenue sources. The number one revenue source is our cash on hand account. Number two is property taxes. Number three is intergovernment money,

state money, grants, federal grants. Number three is operating budget. Number four is unspent budget carryover from the prior year. And the last one about three million comes from a local sales tax. We're not dependent on property tax. It's an element of resource about 20%. We can afford to manage property taxes when you have 80% of your revenue coming from other sources. And then page 10. I don't believe this is an element of compromise. I believe this is what's doing the right thing. And in leadership, right leadership does the right thing for the right reason for the people that we represent. You all were blessed to be elected taxpayers and citizens of our great county. I ask that you look at these four numbers and tell me in my look at me face to face in my eye and say that we cannot afford a 1.8 and a 1.6. So here we go. We got 600 million in increased profit values.

It cost a million7 to buy down the 1.8 to the 1.6 6%. You have nearly 30 million which represents 101% of your budget expenditures. So take off the six. Now we're to 95%. When the state government might say to you next year, hey, you can carry 35%. And if not, that money goes back to who? It goes back to the taxpayer. And then finally, projected cash fund that's going to come in. There's two big numbers that are going to come in. and you will chuckle at me, but I would ask you to do me a favor. See what the cash fund balance report is on July 2nd of this upcoming year. I think it's going to be from 30 to 34 million because you're going to get half of the revenue in March because I got to pay my beautiful taxes this month. a lot of people do. That's six million bucks. Plus, you get revenue from other sources. And secondly, your unfunded carry forward money will be $4 million conservatively. rails, secondary roads, and your palpable projects conservatively have $4 and a half million dollars that they cannot get done by June 30th. Help me understand what road project we got going on out there. I'll give you

two projects that I would question whether we can get done. What's in the budget for 26? We'd love to get the lower guard bridge done and paid for. I think we had eight miles of N56. I don't think it's going to get done and paid for by June 30th. So, what happens is that money then goes to the next year and that can be used for the next year. I just want to say thank you. We live in America that allows the public to share. And I just ask all five of you, if your grandmother sitting across from your table, if your neighbors sitting across from your table, what is the right thing to do? This is an element of compromise. This will define how you guys evaluate right decisions as right leaders. So, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Anyone else? Lord, do you have anything to say?

Well, we can't make any decisions today. No, we can't do it now because we haven't finished a public meeting. Well, we can't. It's not even on the agenda to make any decisions. Sorry.

You know, I think that everyone knows that we listen. We're always open to new information. Uh we also listen to our county auditor, county treasurer. Uh all the department heads. I agree. Uh taxes are are are too high. You know, the carryover is too high and we are going to have to do some tax cutting because that's what the legislature is going to demand of us. You know, uh I think some of it needs to be done this year because there may be a one to threeyear implementation of the new tax bill, but that's not signed by the governor yet. So, we don't know where that's going. I would hate to try to do it all in one year to get down to 35%. But I'm definitely considering everything that's been presented to me today and in the previous six months.

Good presentation. Nothing to add. I thank you Mike for the information.

Yes, sir. I have a I have a question and it's a question maybe directed to Mike more more so or just a comment. Um when you mentioned that 35% of or excuse me 40% of the um county budget is regulated by the county. I'd like to break that down more because I don't think it's totally 40% because we have so many state and federal regulations that we have to so example opioid monies that's in that budget but we are so regulated of where that can be and where that can't be and what we can spend and that carryover has to be there. I just don't think that the county board has the 40% control. And just a comment because I don't have the answer either, but I just think that we that that percentage is smaller as to what we have available to regulate. Here's a little data from Chris, our Dickens County treasur who did the bank reconciliation. Of that roughly 30 million, 4.3 million was at Bank Midwest and State Bank. 7.3 million of that money was put into bonds. 22 million is put into the Iowa PIT which pays a daily interest rate. That money is not tied up. It's paid a daily interest rate. The city, the counties,

the schools, if they need it, they pull it back. So that's liquid money. If we look at the principle of the investment policy, number one, it's safety. Number two, it's liquidity. And number three, it's return. So, in order to make sure we meet all of our obligations, we need to adhere to an investment policy that is safe. It appears that they've done safe investments. Is it liquid? question could be made is do you want seven, eight, five, four or $3 million in bonds which tenant generally has a duration of greater than a year to tie that money up and it appears that we've got money in the iPad fund that pays a daily interest which allows them to get in and out liquidity safe. So from the investment perspective, I don't see where we're tying up any money. We can still pay for our obligations and and so forth. With regards to uh the question, uh look at that revenue sheet. Um we get money from a lot of different sources. And also I'd like to just say this year's budget was submitted with about a 6.4% increase from last year. So our nine service areas increased the budget again

by over 6%. Do me a favor. Take a look at the last three to five years on increases in the department heads budgets. What'll happen is there will be a rude awakening if the government passes a 2% lift on revenue. The reason why that's occurring, the legislators are listening to the taxpayers and say, "Hey, I don't get a six or nine or 12% lift in my social security check. I'm living on a means of a tight budget. Can you guys please just do the right thing with serve and protect?" But when you go five to seven, 6% 4% year after year after year, it hurts because they they don't have another revenue source for money. Whereas government, we do have other sources for money, which we're lucky that we have those monies coming in. So, um I'm just saying look at the budget trends. We're not too tight. I've sat through these hearings and I very seldom hear the word no on the department heads budgets that are submitted. So, uh, if things change with 35%, if things change with assessments, if things change with 2%, it will require our board of supervisors as well as our department heads to

buckle down with the guidelines that have been presented. So, that's my best guess. There's nothing else. There's no state of the county report. Usually, we have a something given to us by the person in the board that's doing the budget. That would be at the budget.

That's at the budgeting. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I get my hearings fixed up. Yeah. No, that's Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. Sorry, Steve. All right. If there's nothing else, I move we close this hearing and ask for a motion to adjourn. I'll make the motion to adjourn. Okay, Levi, I'll second. Mr. Clark second discussions hearing none. Levi Hi, Mr. Clark. Hi, Mr. Dollar. Hi,

Kim. M Bill is I thank you all for