By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
The City of Burlington Common Council approved the 2014 city budget Tuesday night and, as expected, most tax bills to remain roughly the same.
The mill rate will increase from $7.81 percent to $8.65 per $1,000 of property value – a number finalized after manufacturing values from the Department of Revenue that arrived late because of a Board of Review session.
However, as a whole, assessed property values are down throughout the city. The average residential home value was reduced from $191,845 in 2012 to $172,400 this year – a drop of 10.14 percent.
The 2014 budget includes the beginning of a full value reassessment of 25 percent of the city, ongoing over the next four years.
The increase in the tax levy is .516 percent, roughly $26,000 in general fund dollars.
To put the mill rate into practical terms, the average city portion of a tax bill on a $200,000 home will be $1,722. If that same home was valued at $220,000 in 2012 – reflecting the 10 percent decrease of the past year – the bill for 2012 would have been $1,718.20.
While that is a small difference and all aldermen voted for the budget, Alderman Tom Preusker did ask if the city could have come in at a zero percent tax increase.
The answer was yes – but that wasn’t the direction the City Council gave city staff members in the 2013 budget workshops.
“As a whole, during the budget workshops, the council didn’t ask us to go to zero,” explained City Administrator Kevin Lahner, who added that the increases over the years have been “extremely minimal.”
Alderman Tom Vos called the budget a balance between cutting too much and raising the tax rate.
Lahner also pointed out that TIF 3 is expected to close sooner than expected, likely in 2016 or 2017, instead of 2020 or 2021. As a result, the city will get a sooner-than-expected bump in taxable property and a one-time windfall from the TIF.
The budget reflects a staff member cut from both the public works and the police departments, and a final general fund balance of 25 percent, or $1.88 million.
Local property tax bills also include levies from the state, county, Gateway Technical College and the Burlington Area School District. The bottom line on those bills is the total impact of all taxing districts.
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