Public comment leads council to reduce ‘22-23 budget tax askings

    Comments at a pair of public hearings the past week led Imperial city council members to reduce the tax askings in its 2022-23 proposed budget.
    Six to eight people attended both a Friday night state-mandated hearing at the courthouse and Monday’s city budget hearing, when several spoke about the city’s proposed 17% increase in tax askings.
    The city’s initial property tax request for 2022-23 totalled $1,528,837, up from the 2021-22 request of $1,302,694.
    The proposed $226,143 increase was 17.3% over last year.
    Of the $1,528,837 proposed total, $560,449 in property taxes were earmarked for bonds to pay on the East 2nd/Holland Streets paving.
    The rest, $968,388, is for non-bond expenses.
    However, after the comments at both hearings, council members Monday voted to reduce the property taxes by $200,000 in the bond fund, cutting it to $360,449.
    That dropped the overall tax increase to 6.2%.
    “Considering inflation at 8.3%, this is reasonable and I’m glad we did it,” said council member Doug Gaswick.
    At both hearings, concern with putting the entire burden of the street paving bonds on taxpayers was expressed by several, while the street department has $1.584 million in its cash reserve.
    Stewart Weiss said with those savings he would think the city could take some of the burden off taxpayers.
    “There’s a big savings account here,” he said.
    Weiss said, personally, he saves for the things he needs before he buys what he needs.
    “I’m not against a savings account. I would just like to see some of the burden shared,” he said.
    Mayor Dwight Coleman said they follow their auditor’s suggestions, which at times says they have too much in reserve and other times not enough. They try to abide with what the auditor recommends, he said.
    He noted the interest rate was locked in when they bonded the $1.208 million street paving project in 2020, “so I think we did the right thing by borrowing money at that time,” he said.
    When interest rates are higher, and they have gone up recently, Coleman said they can use that money in reserve later and not have to pay for bonds then at a higher interest rate.
    “Is it a good thing to do? I don’t know, Stewart, but that’s the direction we decided to go,” he said.
    Heather Johnson commented on the 8-10% employee salary increases included in the budget proposal.
    “That seems an awfully steep raise on taxpayers when we have record high inflation and paying out the nose for property taxes,” she said.
    “When I look at that and as somebody who’s going to be paying several more hundred dollars in property taxes, it’s like everybody in the community is essentially getting a pay cut,” she said.
    “Who else is getting 8% raises in town because there’s inflation?” she asked. “Nobody.”
    “But, we’re going to take it out of the pockets of hardworking people in our community and distribute it around just because we feel like they are good people?” she asked.
    “It’s not about deserving it, it’s about do we have the money,” she said.
    Council member Chad Yaw said if the raises aren’t given, they could begin to lose employees, and possibly services would need to be cut.
    Mayor Coleman said the job market is hot, and “we have excellent employees.”
    He said they want to keep up with the inflation rate for salaries, and it’s cheaper to keep the employees they have versus training new ones.
    “Our goal is to keep the employees we have with that 8-10% raise,” he said.
    City Clerk Jo Leyland said they use the Nebraska Pay Survey to compare job duties with employees in other communities Imperial’s size to adjust pay levels for city employees.
    Johnson agreed the city has good employees, but asked, “At what expense to all the citizens in Imperial?”
    She said raises are in order but 8-10% “seems like a lot.” She suggested consideration of 4% raises.
    Loeffler said the natural gas industry in which he works is giving 13% salary increases due to industry-wide labor shortages.
    Mayor Coleman asked the crowd what were some areas they see where city money is being overspent.
    Answers included the police department, roads, nuisance department and city employee travel. Another suggested contracting out the city’s snow removal and park summer mowing/maintenance.
    The additional hearing Friday at the courthouse was due to a new state law passed this year by the Unicameral.
    State law now requires counties, cities, community colleges and school districts that make property tax requests exceeding their allowable growth to hold a separate public hearing in the evening at another time than the entity’s regular budget hearing.
Property tax dropped
    After the hearing, the council adopted a resolution reducing the property tax by $200,000.
    The change reduces the tax rate to .673757 (per $100 of assessed valuation), down from the proposed .775163.
    The city’s operating budget, which encompasses all funds, dropped 17% for 2022-23 from $20,420,555 to $16,897,411.
    No change was made to the salary proposals. On a 4-0 vote, the council approved the wage ordinance as proposed with an average employee increase of 8-10% across the board.
    Imperial experienced a valuation increase in 2022 of 7% with $2.6  million of it from new growth.

City administrative salary increases
Clerk/Adm. Jo Leyland—from $92,231 to $99,610, 8% raise.
Public Works Supt. Pat Davison—$91,345 to $98,650, 8% raise.
Police Chief Ryan Wisnieski—from $74,860 to $81,000, 8.2% raise.
Comm. Dev. Dir. Tyler Pribbeno—from $74,263 to $81,500,  9.7% raise.
Bldg. Inspector/Zoning Officer Nick Schultz (part-time)—from $20,833 to $22,300, 7% raise.