[0:00] Title card: Up Next Ames City Council.

[0:03] Mayor, City Manager and Ames City Council sitting at a curved dais.

[0:06] Director of Finance Corey Goodenow and Budget Manager Nancy Masteller sit at the staff table.

[0:10] I call the special meeting of the Ames City Council

[0:13] to order for March 24th, 2026.

[0:16] And, Carly, would you just call the roll tonight?

[0:20] We had a couple people online.

[0:22] Betcher?

[0:25] Aye. Junck?

[0:28] It’s here. Here, here. I don’t know.

[0:30] Corrieri? Yeah?

[0:33] Oh. I'm here.

[0:34] Yep. Rollins?

[0:37] Here.

[0:38] Beatty-Hansen. Here. And Gartin. Here.

[0:41] Thank you.

[0:42] All right.

[0:42] We're going to add

[0:43] one item on this, agenda, as required by the Code of Iowa and,

[0:47] public hearing regarding proposed property tax levy for fiscal year 2026 2027.

[0:54] And then, Corey, you have a few things you want us to do a little bit

[0:56] a little background and then we'll open up, the public hearing.

[0:59] Yeah.

[0:59] So just a reminder, what we're doing tonight is a statutory requirement

[1:02] for a public hearing regarding the property tax levy.

[1:04] So, the Council, is required to hear public feedback.

[1:09] There can be no action taken tonight.

[1:10] So really, it's just to get feedback from the public, and,

[1:14] I guess one of the things that, occurs in anticipation of this meeting is,

[1:18] a letter that we have on the screen is sent to all Iowa property owners.

[1:23] And so we're just going to run the I think the,

[1:25] I think there's consensus that the statement is a little bit confusing.

[1:28] And so we're just going to run through, sample statement here really quick.

[1:31] And then,

[1:32] we have some of our own data and two that we hope to talk about a little bit.

[1:35] So this is, this is a similar statement that everybody should have received.

[1:39] And it's got the school district here on the top has the, county.

[1:43] And then of course, the City of Ames is the one we're here to talk about tonight.

[1:47] Excuse me.

[1:48] It has our telephone number, our website.

[1:50] And then I think the thing that we would want to

[1:51] look at tonight is the property tax piece.

[1:53] So this is the item that we're not looking to add really

[1:56] tonight, we don't have a lot of AG property in the City.

[1:59] So we're looking at the general, general non-AG.

[2:01] So last year the City collected about $37.6 million.

[2:05] And that resulted in a tax rate about $10.30.

[2:09] I think the effective tax rate is what gets people confused.

[2:11] So the effective tax rate of $9.72 is,

[2:16] the rate if the City had collected the same amount

[2:19] of property tax dollars, but there was an adjustment in the value.

[2:23] So if we collected the same 37.6 million in the upcoming fiscal year

[2:28] that we collected in the current fiscal year, that would have been the levy rate.

[2:32] But our proposed property tax collections is 39.7.

[2:37] So that results in a $10.27 levy rate.

[2:42] We'll scroll down here to the next piece.

[2:45] So this, top table here is a little bit confusing.

[2:48] So you'll notice that the, on the far right side here, the City's about 33.69%.

[2:54] In this case, you can see, the, taxing district is 01001,

[2:59] which Ames City, Ames schools, we also have Ames City Gilbert schools.

[3:03] And we have some property, I believe in the Ames City Nevada school.

[3:07] So that only applies to the Ames City, Ames School District.

[3:11] So I think the highlight of that is really

[3:13] the City's about a third of the total levy.

[3:16] And then you scroll down here, you can see,

[3:18] that this, is a calculation for properties valued

[3:21] at $100,000 who received a 10% increase in their valuation.

[3:25] So if your valuation was $100,000 and went up to $110,000,

[3:30] this would be the impact

[3:31] we we do not believe that properties went up 10% valuation.

[3:35] That's a little bit higher than we expect about, 8%.

[3:38] We'll show that on the next slide. But just want to point that out.

[3:41] So what we're looking across here down at the City.

[3:43] So if you had a $100,000 property we would have collected $489.

[3:49] In the current fiscal year.

[3:50] Under the proposed levy rate, we would collect $503

[3:54] or a 2.86% increase.

[3:58] And then it

[3:59] also goes on to do commercial industrial properties here.

[4:02] But that's again, this is a school, county, city,

[4:06] and of course, we're at a 10.64% increase.

[4:09] And that is larger because we've talked about this in the budget process.

[4:12] The levy rate or the rollback decreased.

[4:15] And we're going to talk about that in the next slide.

[4:18] So this is a familiar slide that we present to the Council

[4:21] when we're doing our budget overview session.

[4:23] Again you can see much of the information is similar.

[4:25] So $10.30 in the current fiscal year.

[4:28] The proposed rate for the upcoming fiscal year is 1027.

[4:31] We believe there was about an 8% average increase

[4:34] in valuation year over year for residential properties.

[4:38] And then the roll back adjustment you can see is the line below.

[4:40] So the rollback for residential properties is 47.43%.

[4:43] The current fiscal year in 44.53% in the upcoming fiscal year.

[4:48] So what that means is last year, this should look pretty similar.

[4:52] The City collected $488.75 and we anticipate collecting $496.41,

[5:00] an increase of about $7.66, or about 1.57%.

[5:04] And again, the difference between those two things is the change in the valuation.

[5:08] We don't, there's

[5:09] probably some properties, certainly that saw a 10% increase or higher.

[5:12] But on average

[5:13] we expected about a 10 or 8% increase in valuation for residential properties.

[5:18] Same thing for commercial, industrial.

[5:20] The same formula applies.

[5:22] It's a little bit different.

[5:23] We take the average valuation.

[5:26] So we take our total assessed value and divide it by taxable value.

[5:30] Actually that's taxable divided by assessed.

[5:32] So we come up with a different roll back adjustment

[5:35] for both industrial and commercial.

[5:37] But you can see for commercial properties we expect about a 10.54% increase.

[5:43] And we saw about a 20% increase in industrial valuation.

[5:47] So we expect about an 19.4% increase for those properties.

[5:50] So Corey, let's pause on the industrial for a second.

[5:54] So, we learned that

[5:57] there were some properties that were not,

[6:01] assessed on schedule.

[6:03] And we've corrected all that.

[6:05] And, thankfully, I thought that was going to be

[6:08] a much bigger deal than it is, but it's really a non-issue.

[6:11] But it is that sort of baked in to what

[6:14] we're seeing here in terms of that increase.

[6:17] Yeah, I think that's the so and the the column here,

[6:20] you can see with the $100,000 property to $119,000 property,

[6:25] that's really that big valuation increase for, for industrial property.

[6:29] So that is included in our calculation okay.

[6:31] That's all I need. Thanks.

[6:34] That's a good point to bring up because you asked

[6:36] that of the City Assessor and one of our in the Board of Review, or not

[6:40] Board of Review, the Conference Board meeting.

[6:44] And she made it very clear

[6:45] that some properties hadn't been visited for over ten years.

[6:48] Industrial properties.

[6:49] That is, so they're catching up and they should have been, but they weren't.

[6:53] And she was not Assessor when those were overlooked essentially.

[6:56] So anyway, so

[6:59] so a person who's either watching or here,

[7:03] how, let's just say they had a house that was

[7:06] they got a notice and it was assessed at 250.

[7:10] What number would they, would they use the 108 divide

[7:14] or 100 to figure out what their increase is going to be?

[7:18] Sure.

[7:18] So in that case, you would just multiply the 100% valuations

[7:22] by two and a half and that would carry all the way through.

[7:25] So two and a half times $7. Two and a half times 100,000, yeah.

[7:29] times $7.65 would be the increase.

[7:33] Is that correct?

[7:34] For interested parties we have a calculator don't we? Yeah.

[7:37] And that was our next question. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

[7:39] Go ahead.

[7:40] All right I was going to say that would

[7:42] that's where I would steer someone if they were curious about that.

[7:45] Sure. We can just we do have a calculator on the website.

[7:47] We did it for the,

[7:49] whoops, the first time last year.

[7:53] Where can they what can work? Can they find it too.

[7:55] So you can share. Yep.

[7:56] So if you go to City of Ames, our website,

[7:58] City of Ames wesbite.

[8:00] and you go to the Finance web page under the Department

[8:02] section under My Government.

[8:04] So this is CityofAmes.org. Yep.

[8:07] And you go to the Finance Department here

[8:10] and you scroll down off to the right.

[8:14] We have a section called Property Tax

[8:16] where we're talking about our property tax for the upcoming fiscal year.

[8:19] We have something to talk about.

[8:20] Look out for the letter talks about the valuation increase.

[8:24] And then we have, City of Ames residential property

[8:27] tax calculator, where you can enter in your individual valuation.

[8:31] So it'll be important to enter in your 24 assessment and your 25 assessment

[8:35] that can be found on the county's beacon website.

[8:39] And that should come out with exactly what you're,

[8:41] and remember, this is just the City property taxes.

[8:43] So we're not talking about school or county or anything else.

[8:46] This is just the City portion of your property tax bill.

[8:48] And what else does that show down there. Yeah.

[8:50] So it shows how we how we spend those property tax dollars in the upcoming

[8:54] fiscal year.

[8:54] So we break them down by several different categories.

[8:57] Public Safety,

[8:58] Utilities, Transportation, Parks and Rec all the way down to General Governmental.

[9:02] And then it of course gives you kind of a property tax.

[9:04] We call that a receipt.

[9:05] So that's what you're getting for your property tax dollars.

[9:09] Any other question?

[9:13] Rachel or Anita.

[9:14] Any questions.

[9:18] No thank you.

[9:22] Okay.

[9:23] All right.

[9:23] I declare the public hearing on the

[9:26] proposed property tax levy for fiscal year

[9:29] July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027.

[9:33] To be open, anyone who wants to address Council is welcome to come up

[9:37] to the podium, introduce themselves and then offer comments.

[9:42] Or questions.

[9:48] All right.

[9:48] Seeing and hearing none.

[9:50] We'll declare the public hearing to be closed.

[9:53] What's the next steps that's going to happen?

[9:55] Yep. So tonight, as part of the consent

[9:58] agenda, will set the public hearing for, I believe, April 14th.

[10:02] So the second public hearing.

[10:03] Second public hearing. Yep.

[10:04] On the overall budget.

[10:06] And once that's approved,

[10:07] we submit that to the county who ultimately submits to the state for approval.

[10:11] All right. Very good.

[10:14] Thank you.

[10:15] Entertain a motion to adjourn. Move we adjourn. Second.

[10:19] Thank you. We are adjourned.

[10:28] City Council meeting credits.

Special Meeting of the Ames City Council

Agenda

Transcript