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W’bago lowering property tax hike

Council works to drop from 28.74% to 16.45% at work session

By Fiona Green - Staff Writer | Oct 24, 2021

The Winnebago City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 19, to continue their discussion about Winnebago’s 2022 property tax levy.

When entering into the meeting, the council faced a staggering levy of $875,908.90, representing a 28.74 percent increase over 2021’s levy.

Their goal was to whittle down the levy as much as possible, while also keeping under consideration the reality that this coming year, a low property tax levy is simply not realistic for the city to meet its financial needs.

“Five percent is out of the question. It’s just not going to happen,” council member Tim Hynes stated. “I don’t want to be at 28 or 30 percent, I want to be in between. But, I don’t think we can get to five percent.”

The council spent approximately an hour combing through the budget, looking at how the redistribution of “nickels and dimes,” as council member Jean Anderson put it, could add up to significant savings.

Council member Calvin Howard had several small suggestions for the council. “It’s nothing substantial,” Howard admitted, “but I did find some things.”

Howard pointed out several areas where the city could conserve some funds. These included reducing the budgeted $2,000 for postage to $1,000, and the $12,000 budgeted for legal fees to $10,000.

Howard also suggested lowering the budgeted miscellaneous expenses under the professional services column and the budgeted communication expenses in the same category.

Howard next brought the council’s attention to the budget for ambulance services for part-time employees.

“Right now, we’ve budgeted $115,000,” Howard noted. “Is $115,000 something we could lower by $5,000? Is that realistic? I don’t just want to lower arbitrarily.”

City administrator Jacob Skluzacek responded, “I’d be fine lowering it to $110,000.”

Finally, Howard suggested lowering the swimming pool’s budget of $40,000 by $5,000.

Though Howard’s finds made a dent in the proposed levy, the council was left with two tough decisions which would massively decrease the levy, but which would also have a significant impact upon the city of Winnebago.

First, the council weighed what they should contribute to the capital equipment fund for 2022.

At the start of the meeting, the budget had been set to account for a 25 percent contribution to capital funds, which did add a significant amount of $25,850 to the proposed levy.

However, Skluzacek shared, “The auditors really want that to be zeroed out. They don’t want us to contribute anything to capital this year.”

Skluzacek explained the auditors suggested a zero percent contribution in acknowledgment of the expected rise in utility rates. “They knew utility rates would go up,” Skluzacek reasoned.

However, given Winnebago’s dwindling store of capital funds, some council members were concerned at the idea of contributing nothing at all to the capital equipment budget.

“Next year we don’t want to have another outrageous levy because we’re behind in capital equipment,” Howard reasoned.

Another large piece of the puzzle was deciding whether to eliminate or reduce a city employee’s position.

The council seriously considered reducing EDA specialist Angie Steier’s position to one day a week. Steier currently works two days a week for Winnebago.

The reduction could save the city approximately $25,000 a year. However, the council was quick to acknowledge other costs the reduction would have for the city.

“She’s the one who’s been making us money,” mayor Scott Robertson noted.

Anderson agreed. “I would rather exchange her (Steier’s) $25,000 for the capital,” she said. “She has gotten so many grants. She’s about reinventing and bringing Winnebago back. I just don’t think we can let that languish.”

After doing the math, the council realized whether they decided to put away funds for capital equipment or maintain Steier’s current hours was irrelevant in terms of numbers. Either way, the property tax levy would sustain an increase of around 16 percent.

Therefore, the decision came down to where the council felt the funds would be best spent.

“I could definitely be convinced to keep the EDA around and nix capital funds this year,” Howard stated.

“She (Steier) has brilliant ideas, and that’s a very good reason to keep her. She does pay for herself,” Howard said.

In support of this decision, council member Paul Eisenmenger added, “The auditors have been telling us for many years that we need to raise our utility rates. People chose not to listen to them, and we got ourselves into trouble.”

He continued, “They’re telling us they feel we’ll be okay by cutting out capital equipment completely this year, and I think we need to listen to them. Hopefully, next year things will change.”

With Howard’s suggested changes early in the meeting, and the reduction of funds contributed toward capital equipment to zero percent, the council determined the tax levy would be reduced to $792,298.90, a 16.45 percent increase.

The council also figured this increase would cost an average Winnebago household an additional $18 per month, approximately.

The council felt this was a reasonable price to pay for the good it will do the city in the future

Howard said, “If we do this level of increase, it will reorientate our tax system.”

He added, “Winnebago, for its size, is still taxed below average for the area. Not by much, but dollar for dollar this is still a reasonable tax rate.”

As this was a budget workshop with no consent items, the council did not make any official determinations regarding the 2022 property tax levy. However, Skluzacek saved the numbers the council decided upon for when they pass the official levy in December.

Robertson concluded, “You know what our problem is? We’ve been skating along here for the past few years with the levy. This council is going to catch hell for something that should have been done a while back.”