Fiery crowd blasts proposed Floyd County ‘max tax’ property tax levels

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

About 20 people attended a public hearing Monday morning on the proposed Floyd County “maximum tax” rate, with all of those speaking saying the proposed levies were too high and some expressing passionately that such increases would threaten their farms, businesses or families.

After the hearing, the Board of Supervisors discussed ways that American Rescue Plan Act funds for COVID relief might be used to lower the tax asking by more than $730,000, and also discussed reducing some spending in the current fiscal year.

The board voted to table until the next meeting, Monday, March 7, passing the maximum tax resolution to allow more time for board discussion.

The people attending the county max tax hearing were reacting to a proposed maximum tax levy proposal that could have increased the amount of county property taxes collected in the general services levy — the amount paid by every property owner in the county — by more than 30%, and the amount in the rural services levy, paid by owners of property in the rural areas of the county, including farmers, by more than 8%.

Linda Pierson of Charles City asked, with the current inflation rate and what’s going on in the world making people nervous, “How does increasing taxes help bring new businesses to the county?”

“I don’t know if I can stay here,” she said.

Brian Chambers, of Marble Rock, said the county has to make some tough choices, and he knows that people will be upset if some services are cut, but that’s the job supervisors were elected to do.

Supervisor Doug Kamm asked several times during the meeting for people to tell him which services they should cut.

A good deal of the comments at the hearing blamed the new county law enforcement center (LEC) and courthouse updates on the spending increase, and many of the comments were similar to those made last year at a state budget appeal hearing and at last year’s max tax hearing.

The cost of “the project,” as county officials refer to it, has risen several million dollars above the original cost estimated by the project architect, and various comments Monday again said that the supervisors should have either scrapped the project or gone back for another vote before proceeding at the higher price.

But supervisors said the project is 95% complete, and people may disagree with their decision, but it’s in the past.

Kamm said, “I’ve said it before and I’ll go to my grave saying we saved the county millions of dollars” by making the decision to go ahead with the project. He said doing nothing and letting the state close the old jail or rebidding the project would have cost much more.

A county petition filed last year by residents upset with a proposed county budget and spending on the LEC and courthouse project caused the state to review the county’s 2021-22 budget.

The State Appeals Board ruled that the county’s budgeting procedures including alternate ways the supervisors proposed paying for the project had been proper and the property tax increases in the budget were justifiable.

But the state also caught a language error in last year’s max tax resolution that forced the county to collect the same amount of taxes for the current 2021-22 fiscal year that it had the year before.

That year without a tax increase is part of the reason for the steep proposed budget hike this year, as the county is having to dig deeply into its usual carryover balance to pay its bills, supervisors said.

Part of the increase proposed for the next fiscal year would be to bring carryover funds closer to an amount that the county considers appropriate, to get it through the first quarter of the new year before new property tax income comes in, and for emergency uses.

Jeff Hawbaker told the board, “I’ve had enough. You guys are supposed to represent us. We elected you. We’re disappointed. I don’t need a new law enforcement center. We’re not wealthy – we can’t live like we’re wealthy.

“We need cuts, not increases in taxes,” he said. “We have people in this county who can’t pay any more. Look at the budget. Cut the budget. You guys have to come up with solutions,” he said, to applause from the group.

After closing the hearing, Supervisor Linda Tjaden proposed passing the max tax resolution as proposed, saying that it only sets a maximum and they can still make cuts in the couple of weeks left before the county budget needs to be passed.

But Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said he liked an alternate proposal that County Auditor Gloria Carr has included in the agenda packet. It was a list of suggestions, based on conversations Carr and Tjaden had, about possible ways to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to cover some county costs.

Schwickerath said he wasn’t going to second Tjaden’s motion.

“We had a good group of people here today. I want to respect the fact they came, and their concerns,” he said.

Kamm said the resolution only sets a maximum, and they could still make any cuts they want, and he seconded Tjaden’s motion.

Tjaden said of course she understood the people’s concerns, and she agreed that the board needed to look at more cuts, but she wasn’t ready to commit a lot of ARPA dollars without more discussion on all the ways it could be used, and she was worried that passing the max tax resolution with the lower tax amounts could lock them into something.

Carr said the max tax resolution did not need to be passed Monday, but needed to be passed before the final hearing on the county budget, and the board members talked about holding off on passing the resolution until the next meeting.

Tjaden rescinded her original motion and moved to table the max tax resolution until the March 7 meeting, which was seconded by Schwickerath and passed by all three.

There are other county tax funds such as debt service that are not included in the max tax resolution, and county taxes make up just a portion of the total property tax bill people pay, with school districts making up part of rural taxes and schools and city taxes making up part of what people in incorporated cities pay in property taxes, as well as other smaller levies.