T-R PHOTO BY JOE FISHER Councilman Mike Ladehoff serves on his first meeting since winning a special election for the first ward council position last week.

The Marshalltown City Council set a public hearing date of March 22 on the budget for fiscal year ending June 30, 2022.

The budget will be published in the Times-Republican and the city will hold the hearing before approving it.

Finance Director Diana Steiner presented updated budget documents to the council during a meeting on Monday, which reflected actions the council has made in recent weeks.

A public hearing was also held on entering into a Sewer Revenue Refunding Loan agreement. The city is paying 2.69 percent interest on a 2015 bond, but Steiner said it could get a rate at 1.5 percent or possibly lower. This could result in $200,000 in savings.

Discussion was held on how to use proceeds from the sale of the Southridge Estates property. The property is being developed by Southridge LLC., a new LLC formed by Rosemont Companies of Cedar Falls for this project.

The transfer of the property is slated to become official as soon as March 8. Proceeds from the sale are estimated to be $128,000. City staff sought direction on where to deposit those funds.

“There’s a little over $97,000 that the council did originally put towards this with the council designated local option sales tax which could be reimbursed,” said Jessica Kinser, city administrator.

Kinser presented more options for the council’s consideration, which were:

• Deposit into LOST to go toward $250,000 new home incentive funding

• Create a new, special fund to support housing

• Designate all or part of funds to Marshalltown Community Development Corporation when nonprofit status is received

Councilman Gabe Isom voiced support for replenishing the council designated LOST funds.

“Being that this was taken from LOST, we’ve already decided for the pledge for the $250,000 new home incentive which I think supports the third goal, I guess my opinion would be that this goes back into LOST,” he said. “Especially not knowing clearly where we will be — down the road sometime in the immediate future. Especially with the derecho.”

Councilman Gary Thompson asked Kinser if there was an existing policy which would relate to selling this land. Kinser said there wasn’t a direct example equal to a sale of land outside of vacant lots.

“I don’t see an alternative today with the information we have that there’s a better alternative than putting this back into local option sales tax where there’s been a ton of money flowing out of,” Thompson said. “We’re going to be fighting this derecho recovery for the next three years, four years.”

The council approved a motion to bring a resolution forward on the option of using proceeds to replenish council designated LOST at the next council meeting. Councilors Al Hoop and Mike Ladehoff voted “No” on the motion.

Monday’s meeting was Ladehoff’s first time serving on the council after winning the first ward special election less than a week ago.

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Contact Joe Fisher at

jfisher@timesrepublican.com