As rural citizens of Bremer County we, the Bremer County Board of Supervisors want you to be aware of some valuable and important information regarding taxation in Bremer County. Our current Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) expires in 2023 and we have placed the “renewal” of the one cent Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) on the ballot for the upcoming election. We want you to know that this is NOT a property tax increase, that this is a local option sales tax paid at the time of purchase and that in most cases as a rural citizen you will continue to pay the tax regardless of passing our Local Option Sales Tax (LOST), BUT if not passed you as a rural resident will NOT receive any of the benefit in the rural area.
We also want you to know that over the past 20 years of the current Local Option
Sales Tax (LOST) your dollars have paid for the Bremer County Jail/Law Enforcement Center as well as many road projects in the rural areas. Some of these projects include $1,321,000 spent on 164,750 tons of gravel placed on grave roads in the rural road system. In addition $6,199,000 has been spent on several rural road projects that include, Reed Avenue grading and paving, V-14 road paving, C-55 Paving and sealcoat project several bridge deck and full bridge projects as well as patching and other general road maintenance projects. *A complete list of road projects are available online at www.co.bremer.ia.us as well as some photos of the completed projects funded by LOST.
We are asking for you to vote yes to renew this Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) and it is our intent to continue to prioritize our rural road system with much of the revenue received. We also learned during the recent pandemic that our Bremer County Courthouse is in need of updating, improvements and enlarging that we will make with monies from Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) rather than doing a property tax referendum to finance them.
Finally, we want to make you aware that the use of Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) keeps property tax lower as we are less likely to have to levy property tax for projects, like roads, the jail and the courthouse expansion/renovation. We ask you to vote yes for Public Measure BW on your upcoming ballot. Any questions
regarding this press release information may be directed to Dewey Hildebrandt, Chair, 3rd District Supervisor Tim Neil, Vice Chair, 2nd District Supervisor or Ken Kammeyer, 3rd District Supervisor
FY | Gravel Surfacing | Tons | Day Labor Bridge Projects | Projects Involved | Construction | Projects Involved |
2005 | ||||||
2006 | ||||||
2007 | ||||||
2008 | $23,000.00 |
4,000 | $155,000.00 |
Timber Bridges + Jt Project on Marquis | $461,000.00 |
V14 HMA Paving |
2009 | $148,000.00 |
22,000 | $214,000.00 |
Concrete Culverts (C50) + Jt Project on Marquis | $213,000.00 |
HMA Paving Project |
2010 | $7,500.00 |
Concrete Culverts (C50 | ||||
2011 | $31,000.00 |
4,400 | $68,000.00 |
Timber Bridges |
$305,000.00 |
C55 HMA Paving and Sealcoat Project |
2012 | $70,000.00 |
Br 10-21 and 11-10 Oden | $630,000.00 | HMA Paving Project + Frederika Seal Coat + Pavement Markings + Bridge Replacement | ||
2013 | $76,000.00 |
9,650 | $31,000.00 |
Timber Pile | $30,000.00 |
Crack Fill V62 |
2014 | $117,000.00 |
Timber Bridges and CMP Culverts | ||||
2015 | $66,000.00 |
8,300 | $43,000.00 |
Oden Bridge 6-6 | $1,061,000.00 |
HMA Paving Projects |
2016 | $261,000.00 |
29,000 | $59,000.00 |
HMA Paving Projects | ||
2017 | $795,000.00 |
HMA and PCC Paving Project | ||||
2018 | $149,000.00 |
22,400 | $55,000.00 |
Concrete Box Culvert | $112,000.00 | Sealcoat Project + Bridge Design 9-4 |
2019 | $367,000.00 |
41,600 | $233,000.00 |
Bridge Deck Patching | ||
2020 | $200,000.00 |
23,400 | ||||
2021 | $600,000.00 |
Reed Ave Grading | ||||
2022 | $1,700,000.00 |
Reed Ave Paving | ||||
TOTALS | $1,321,000.00 | $164,750.00 | $760,500.00 | $6,199,000.00 |
Original source can be found here.