North Iowa Reporter

The Clear Lake City Council discussed the city's budgets for fiscal years 2023-24 during a recent meeting, making progress on spending for each year despite changes caused by the state's forced tax levy adjustments.

Finance Director Creighton Smith told the board that the city would set a public hearing for an amendment to their current-year budget for 2023, and would then move forward with the approval process for the 2024 fiscal year, adding that the city finance department has reviewed everything after the changes to their upcoming annual tax levy required after the state voted to cut property taxes in February, correcting a state accounting error in 2021. That means a reduction in local tax rates, he told the board.

"The proposed tax rate for the city of Clear Lake is proposed to decrease from $9.70 to $9.65," he said. "This will be the first reduction in the city's tax rate since the 2019 fiscal year. And so it stayed even at that 9.7 since then. Prior to that, it was at the $9.80 per thousand dollars of taxpayer valuation. The taxable valuation again was very healthy for the city, increasing for fiscal year '24 to $808 million, which was up $62 million, an increase of over 8% from fiscal year '23."

Smith shared a brief overview of the budget process for the city, which begins by filling in a general budget template for each department, with department heads giving lists of all estimated expenses for the year and a review of the past five years. After that is submitted, the finance department filters through the requests, then presents the proposed expenses back to department heads, then to the council. At that point, all of the departments align their revenues and fund balances to their needs and adjust the tax levy, which will account for about 40% of the city’s revenue for the year, to cover any gaps, he explained.

The city has a roughly $19 million budget this year, with just under $11 million going to its operating expenses, about $7 million going to the capital budget, and just under $1 million to debt payments, Smith told the council. Some of the major capital improvement projects for 2024 will include planned improvements to City Hall, the South 15th Street park, a new fire truck, repainting a water tower, and street and sidewalk improvements among other projects, he said.