•Glenwood commission directs staff to look at revenue alternatives

By Tim Douglass

tdouglass@pctribune.com

Glenwood City Commissioner last Wednesday unanimously approved the 2024 preliminary levy of $2,200,755, a 9.1 percent increase over this year’s levy.

The preliminary budget and levy for 2024 needed to be adopted and certified to Pope County by Sept. 30.  At this point, the levy can be reduced, but cannot be increased when the final levy is adopted at the end of the year.  

Although the levy is increasing, City Administrator Dave Iverson pointed out that the city’s tax rate is estimated to decrease to 54.78 percent.  That could mean that some property within the city will see slight decreases in city taxes, although that is difficult to determine until the final levy is certified.  

The city’s overall tax rate, which is used to help determine taxes on individual parcels within the city, drops when property valuations increase, Iverson explained.  “As you know, we’ve seen some good increases in valuation over the past two years, which are driven by sales of homes and property,” Iverson explained.  He said the 54.78 percent tax rate estimated for 2024 is “a good rate for our community.”  

Since 2018, the city’s tax rate was above 70 percent. 

As far as the 2024 budget and levy, Iverson cited inflationary costs of goods and services as well as rising wages as the reasons for the budget increase.  

“Hiring and replacing employees is a challenge right now,” Iverson said, emphasizing that employee retention is “actually more cost effective.”

“Wage cost is a real issue,” he said. “It’s tough to have to spend money training a person just to have them go somewhere else because they can benefit financially from the move.”  

He said it is a real concern to the city’s police department and other city departments because neighboring government entities are “poaching our officers and employees.”

Iverson told commissioners that staff is well aware that we can only get so much out of our taxpayers, “even though it is costing more to deliver the same services.”

Glenwood Police Chief Dale Danter reiterated Iverson’s concern about hiring and retaining qualified officers.

“I am not here to complain, but I do want you to know we are at the crossroads of not even having a department going forward,” Danter told the commission.  He said the candidate pool for hiring officers is very small right now.  “You have authorized another full-time officer and I can’t fill that position.” 

Danter said the city’s police department has lost good officers recently.  

“It never has been as serious as it’s been this year,” he said about the ability to retain and replace city police officers.

City Commissioner Mavis Pattee said she realized that a lot of the budget increase is due to salaries and insurance costs.  “That really plays into what’s going on everywhere,” she said.

Commissioner Brent Cochran agreed that hiring and retaining employees has become a challenge.

“As a business owner we’re suffering from the same thing.  Employment in his business is down 30 percent” and, he added, it costs 15 to 30 percent more to bring in new employees for the same work.  “It’s a critical moment and I don’t see it changing.”  He said businesses are downsizing because it’s easier to run if you have a smaller employee base.  

Commissioner calls 

for “Bold moves”

Glenwood Commissioner Neil Haynes said he believes the times call for making some “bold moves” to find alternative revenue sources for the city.

One such move, he said, may be to approach Glacial Ridge Health Systems about contributing to the city’s police department.  He talked about the hours local police spend with emergency medical needs from traffic control to airlifting patients. 

“I know this it’s a bold move…but one of our biggest problems is getting and retaining staff (without taxing people so much) and we have to figure out what we have to do to keep people working in the community,” Haynes said.  “If we don’t make bold moves, what’s going to happen.  Let’s not let it happen,” he added.

He said the idea is his alone.  “There’s a strong connection between the hospital and law enforcement.  “This is a kind of ‘Backing of the Blue’ we should investigate and start talking about as we move forward,” Haynes added. “I just want to throw it out there now so we can start having this conversation.”

Iverson added that there are other ways, as well, to add revenue without taxing property.  He talked about a city-wide sales tax, that spreads some of the burden on those who visit the city.  He also mentioned looking at increases in park and other city fees.

“We have to look at as many tools in the tool box as we have,” Haynes responded.