The Perry City Council will open a public hearing at Monday night’s council meeting prior to voting on the $10.2 million budget for fiscal year 2020, which begins July 1, 2019.
The FY 20 budget documents are available on the city’s website for residents and others who wish to inspect them prior to the Monday meeting.
The total taxable value of property in Perry is about $168 million, an $8.8 million increase in the value of taxable property in Perry over the past year, according to the office of the Dallas County Assessor. This was a larger increase than the fiscal year 2018 increase of $2.5 million.
In the proposed 2020 budget, the city will take in about $10.6 million in revenues and spend about $9.18 million in expenditures. Taxpayers will see a modest decrease in the total levy for the 2020 fiscal year. Property owners will pay about $17.799 per $1,000 of taxable valuation next year, a drop of about 6.9 cents from the FY 2019 rate of $17.868.
Perry Finance Officer Susie Moorhead said the projected revenues of $10.6 million in FY 2020 is about $1 million more than the city collected in FY 2019. Revenue sources include an estimated $2.95 million in property taxes, $1.4 million in Local Option Sales Taxes and $1 million in Iowa road use taxes, with the balance coming from fees, service charges and other sources. General fund revenues are estimated to be about $3.68 million.
Over the course of two rounds of meetings, the department heads pared back their capital requests for next year from about $3 million to the $648,000 expected to be available, according to city forecasts.
Total expenditures for FY 2020 are budgeted at $9.18 million, including general fund spending of about $3.6 million.
Wages for Perry workers in the Teamsters and AFSCME unions are currently in negotiation but are expected to be 3 percent for both unions, Moorhead said. An 8.2 percent increase in health insurance premiums will cost the taxpayers about $656,000, even with employees set to start paying 15 percent of their premiums.
Perry residents are encouraged to attend the Monday, March 4 council meeting in the Clarion Room of the Security Bank Building at 1102 Willis Ave. The budget must be submitted to the Dallas County Auditor by March 15.
