Humboldt City Council sets budget

Discuss law enforcement, sanitation

By PHIL MONSON
After a public hearing with no objectors, the Humboldt City Council reviewed the property tax levy for the 2026-27 fiscal year and set in motion the process for its approval at their next meeting.

The city’s proposed budget for the 2026-27 year for residential with an actual/assessed valuation of $100,000/$110,000 will be $784, up from the current year at $754.

For regular commercial property with an actual/assessed valuation of $300,000/$330,000, it will go from $3,278 to $3,661.

Taxable valuations for non-debt service will go down, from $210,618,010 to $209,265,208.

“In the budget we have put together, our asking amount is only going up $1,600. The levy is only going up roughly ten cents,” Humboldt City Administrator Cole Bockelmann said.

“The taxable valuation is down slightly. Assessed values went way up and so our taxable portion shrunk a little bit,” Bockelmann said. “Otherwise, everything is typically the same as it has been in our mandatory levies, which is debt service, benefits, unified law enforcement, those types of things, account for about $7.6 of the total levy. Roughly half of our levy we have no control over.”

Bockelmann said the state-mandated truth in taxation statement sent out last month can be confusing. This year is the second year for the statement required by the Iowa Legislature.

“A lot of the confusion is on the back of the second page, which projects people’s tax valuations based on assumptions using the rollback percentage,” Bockelmann said.

“The budget will be published in this week’s paper and then we’ll discuss and look for approval at our April 20 meeting,” Bockelmann said.

The council approved the budget estimate and directed the city clerk to publish the notice of public hearing for Monday, April 20, 5:30 p.m.
LEC discussion

Topics that consumed most of the two-hour-plus long meeting centered around the city’s proposal to move its police department offices to the new fire station and consideration of outsourcing the sanitation department or maintaining the department with equipment upgrades.

Bockelmann said the new fire station does have space to facilitate offices for the police department. And with the city looking at purchasing a new ladder truck over the last two years, proposed expansion of the fire station to make room for the new truck would further help facilitate the addition of the police department.

The city and the county have had a 28E agreement in place since 1977 with a remodeled building at the corner of Sumner Avenue and 5th Street in Humboldt serving as the law enforcement center.

Sanitation
The council and city employee Clayton Vorland discussed the pros and cons of outsourcing the city sanitation department.

With the retirement of an employee over the winter and with the council looking at replacing an aging truck with a newer truck that would have a mechanical arm to pick up and empty residential trash bins instead of having an individual picking up bags and tossing them into the truck, the upfront financial savings of going to an outside company and the long term expense maintaining its general fund for other expenditures is impacting their decision.

Another factor is the future of maintaining and doing away with the volunteer recycling program the city has operated for many years. Workman’s compensation costs over time also have to be factored into the long-term budgeting process.

Read the FULL STORY in this week's issue of the Humboldt Independent!