(Atlantic) Three new members attended their inaugural Atlantic City Council meeting on Wednesday evening. Mayor Grace Garrett welcomed Ward 1 City Councilperson Emily Kennedy, Mike McDermott, Ward 3, and Shawn Sarsfield in Ward 5.
During the business portion of the meeting, the Council approved the First Whitney Bank and Trust as the City’s Official Bank. It approved the Atlantic News Telegraph as the City’s Official Newspaper for Publication.
Atlantic City Administrator John Lund then stepped to the podium and reported the City’s Health Insurance renewal will come out next week. He said the city is tracking similarly to last year, which rose 6.4 percent.
Lund received some good news from the Local Option Sales Tax figures for November and December, showing an increase of 2.7 percent over last year. He says the 2023 Holiday season brought in $243,094.00, compared to $236,550.00 in 2022.
Lund says the assessed valuations rose 25.32 percent to 402 million-750-thousand-781 dollars. Lund says this increases the city’s maximum borrowing capacity and drops the debt-to-value ratio, which is good.
Lund says that is where the good news ends. Lund says the city will receive $34,323 in new general fund dollars. Which he says is very low for a reassessment year. The fiscal year 2024 budget is a little over $4.2 million.
Last Spring, the Iowa Legislature passed a $100 million property tax cut into law. The new law requires local governments to use surplus revenue to lower their levies. This means if value rates rise, the levy rates will fall. This will cause local governments to sharpen their pencils regarding budgeting.
Atlantic Mayor Grace Garrett…
Lund did say a footnote to this will not affect the city’s economic development projects this year. He says yes, this will affect the city’s business operations, but the property tax cuts will not affect economic development as far as planning for growth.
The Iowa property tax cut bill: *Divides cities and counties into three tiers based on their revenue growth. *Establishes a new formula that requires local governments to use a portion of the excess growth to reduce property taxes. *Cuts property taxes for veterans and seniors. *Requires local governments to provide more detailed information to taxpayers about how their property tax dollars are used. *Consolidates some supplemental levies into the general levy while leaving other levies out of the revenue growth cap. *It is estimated to provide property taxpayers with 100 million dollars in relief.
