WC Iowa News

At their March 27 council meeting, the Carroll City Council dealt with their annual tax levy and upcoming fiscal year budget after the dust settled from the state’s recent actions with Senate Bill 181.

City clerk Laura Schaefer explained that their budget for the fiscal year 2024 included debt repayments for their funding efforts behind the Adams Street reconstruction project and some for the Carroll Recreation Center improvement project, for which they need to pass a pre-levy to be able to make the payments and gather the taxes in the next fiscal year. The city had held public hearings on the matter and was able to approve the resolution without any public comment.

"As we were preparing this budget, we had some hiccups along the way and we worked through those that council did approve and held the maximum property tax levy public hearing back in February," Schaefer said in the meeting. "We came back to council and talked about what those lower tax evaluations did to our proposed budget, and based upon our last conversation with council at the last council meeting, it was decided to set the levy at $12.16."

This comes as the council members also approved the date set for a public hearing for the approval of their fiscal year 2024 budget. Schaefer explained that the city had reevaluated its budget and adjoined levy amounts after the state made changes, saying that the previous version of the budget and the new budget were both on the city website for comparison.

The public hearing for the budget will be April 10th, at which the council will approve the new budget and tax levy rate. Among comments, Mayor Mark Beardmore thanked the city staff for all their work with the ever-changing budget and said he felt they did the best they could in the circumstance and came out with a budget and levy that should make everyone happy.

The council and city staff were also excited to welcome their new city manager Aaron Kooiker, who attended his first meeting on the dais that night. Upon introducing himself to the council, he thanked everyone for being so welcoming and teaching him the ropes, especially Jeff Cayler, who was the interim city manager while they were searching through possible applicants. 

Beardmore continued, stating Kooiker had already made a good impression on quite a few community members in his brief time with the city, hoping this may be the start of a long-standing relationship.