T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY City of Marshalltown Finance Director Diana Steiner, pictured, addressed the city council on a number of budget related matters during Monday night’s regular meeting.

During Monday night’s regular council meeting, Marshalltown City Administrator Jessica Kinser and Finance Director Diana Steiner reported that the city is currently facing a general fund deficit of around $312,000 heading into fiscal year 2024, and Kinser presented several options to either raise revenue or cut expenses.

“We do need to sharpen our pencil a little bit better on this year,” Steiner said.

Steiner also called on the state legislature to stop “squeezing” the city and called continuous changes “an ongoing problem” as budgeting season is now in full swing. Kinser provided a bit of background and answered what she said was a commonly asked question: why don’t you just cut expenditures like funding the municipal band?

“That doesn’t actually save us $9,000. That just means there’s not $9,000 from a separate tax levy coming in to pay that $9,000 out,” she said. “So there are quite a few things that we have that are related that way.”

According to Kinser, the city is looking at just under $9 million in general revenues to support expenses, which are around $9.2 million. She then presented 10 suggestions that would potentially put the city in a surplus of $132,538.

Councilor Gary Thompson then asked Kinser if the $312,000 figure was actually an understatement because of additional funds that may be needed for building maintenance, but she and Public Works Director Heather Thomas said they had bumped the numbers up to account for preventative maintenance.

From there, the council began to sift through and discuss the suggestions. Thompson said he was fine with discontinuing mosquito spraying for a savings of $4,000 a year, but fellow Councilor Mike Ladehoff said he believed it was worth the expense.

Councilor Dex Walker opined that in terms of the total budget, the proposed modifications were “not a very scary list,” but he did share his concern about a proposal for employee furloughs, which would save the city an estimated $79,215.

“That is a big deal, and it’s not something that — compared to spraying for bugs — it’s something that should never be taken lightly,” Walker said.

Kinser said she didn’t think any of the city’s departments were currently overstaffed, and if the goal was to avoid layoffs or eliminating positions, the easiest way was to look at taking “a little bit away from the collective whole.” In her estimation, furloughs would save around $15,843 per day.

“When we can’t do it with one, we’ve gotta do it as a collective, and philosophically I think that makes sense with where we’ve come from as a team in putting the budget together,” she said. “I don’t think it has a positive feedback. I don’t think anybody really wants to do it. I can tell you I have no problem with it. I’ve done it before in another organization.”

Fellow Councilor Gabe Isom spoke from his experience as someone who had experienced furloughs and noted that while he was originally strongly opposed to the idea, he came to understand it and saw it as a viable option for the city. Isom then shifted to another listed item, a proposal to charge the Marshall County Communications Commission a higher rent for the use of the police and fire building.

Currently, the MCCC pays $1 a year in rent, and the proposal would raise that annual figure to $6,392, or about $533 a month. Isom believed the number should be increased even more.

“I think that number is light, extremely light, in my personal opinion. I think that number should be significantly more,” he said. “I think that’s an area that, probably out of all of them, deserves the most focus, attention and conversation.”

Thompson said he was against the furloughs but would be fine with department heads taking a few floating days off per month.

“I have a problem with a guy that’s out on the streets being told what day he’s got to take off,” he said. “The only way I could support this is if it’s limited to department heads. You could save a lot more money because it’s a bigger bang for the buck that way.”

Thompson asked Kinser follow-up questions regarding the lease with the MCCC. Councilor Jeff Schneider said he could be talked into any of the proposals before the floor was opened up to public comments.

Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO John Hall took the floor first and highlighted what he saw as positive developments regarding an increase of $120,000 in the hotel/motel tax revenues.

“We’d like to think that we at least have a part in driving some of that, but the hope is that roughly $50,000 of that is going toward your existing year budget and the deficit we’ve got,” Hall said. “Something I want you to keep in mind is the growth that we’re working towards will help to address the deficit.”

Mark Eaton spoke next and noted that while valuations within Marshalltown have increased approximately $23 million, he felt the city had “handicapped” itself with a total of $30 million tied up in Tax Increment Financing (TIF).

“We don’t get the tax revenue from that TIF, and that was a $17 million increase over the last year, and so we basically cut our own throats using TIF on our tax revenues,” Eaton said. “We wouldn’t have a deficit if we wouldn’t have done that. We would actually have excess (funds).”

He went on to comment that the city was using a “shell game” by moving money from the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) fund to pay for expenses and in turn borrowing to handle infrastructure projects like roads and sewers.

“It’s a fun game to watch and keep track of, but we handicapped ourselves with TIF,” he said.

Jim Shaw then asked if the furloughs would be mandatory or voluntary and said police officers should be excluded from any potential furloughs.

“These people put their lives on the line every day. I don’t think they’re getting paid enough,” Shaw said.

Doris Kinnick then commented on the Summer Blast line item in the budget and asked the council not to increase costs as it is aimed at kids who may come from lower-income families. In response to Eaton’s comment, Thompson asked about whether TIF agreements could be rescinded, and Schneider said that in his view, some valuations wouldn’t increase without the existence of TIF.

“It’s not a zero sum game,” Schneider said.

Other proposals not specifically discussed during the meeting included eliminating BPW and Lawrence Parks, a reduced cost of living adjustment for non-bargaining employees, transferring money in from council designated LOST funds, recognizing and capturing police department vacancies in the budget, increasing Veterans Memorial Coliseum concession prices and using ARPA dollars for revenue replacement/reallocation.

The council is expected to discuss the matter further during a special meeting set for Monday, Jan. 30.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.