Washington considers raising taxes

WASHINGTON — The city of Washington is considering property tax increases in the face of climbing costs across the economy, according to city officials at a budget work session Tuesday night.

“I like how we’ve been dedicated to doing what we need to do with what we’ve got, but everything is costing more,” Mayor Jaron Rosien said. “We have no contingencies, we have seen delays in lots of requests and equipment and maintenance and the biggest thing would be personnel.”

Council members said they were in favor of raising levies incrementally, bracing for expected spikes in the coming year.

“We have been flat for so many years that people just think that’s the way it’s going to be forever, and years ago I was one of them,” Council Member Steve Gault said. “But everything is going up. I mean everything: from a pound of hamburger to gasoline, everything’s going up … It’s been a long time coming, and it’s one of those situations where I don’t want to do it at all, but if we don’t do a little bit this year and a little bit next year, we’re going to do a lot next year.”

City Administrator Deanna McCusker said she supported the gradual approach as well.

“It would be better to do a little bit this year, otherwise, based on what we’re seeing with inflation and the cost of everything, we’re going to see a drastic increase,” she said. “If we do a little this year, people will get used to that.”

Rosien said the change would likely be small, but city officials did not provide specific figures.

“I appreciate that we’re not talking about wild swings,” he said. “We would need to let staff work together and maybe bring a recommendation back to council … I think we should trust our administrator, our finance director and clerk to work and bring a recommendation.”

As for what the money would support in the short term, City Finance Director Kelsey Brown said it would likely go into employee benefit or general insurance levies.

“When it comes down to it, the city only has three levies that they can play with,” she said. “Our financial (analysts) helped me arrive at what we need to set the debt levy at, so there’s no point in changing that because any money that comes in from that has to go into debt service and that can only be spent on paying loans, so that only gives us the option to play with employee benefits and the general insurance.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com