001All right, it's a little after 530 so I'll call the meeting order miss countryman roll call please Chutton Lyon Marsh your show here. See Corey here Boone straw your toy didn't you know? Yeah, I recommend that the board of directors approved the agenda as presented second All right, all those in favor. All right post motion passes So this is a public hearing per Iowa Code 24.2a as a new requirement as part of the district's certified budget process. The notice provided to each resident mailed by the Dallas County Auditor's Office shows the maximum total property taxes the district will adopt as part of the certified budget and will be adopted by April 30th. The notice was published in the Dallas County News as well as the district's website and social media sites as required by law.
002For fiscal year 25-26, the district is proposing a property tax levy of $17.80 per thousand. This is the same levy as the current year. Sarah Enfield, Waukee Community School District CFO, will present additional information on the fiscal year 25-26 budget at our regular board meeting following the public hearing this evening. Board secretary is hereby directed to enter any written comments into the record of this public hearing for those in attendance Thank you for being here We value your input and are interested in hearing your comments if you're playing on speaking We hope that you filled out the form at the back table including your name and address Your names will be called in the order received. Each speaker will have a maximum of three minutes. Your public comments will be considered as part of the
003district's final budget decisions. As a reminder, board members are present to listen and receive those comments. Board members will not engage in dialogue or respond to questions during this meeting, but may address issues that arise at a future board meeting. I will now invite Ms. Enfield up to present her information. So tonight is our public hearing for what I call House File 718. And on the screen, we're showing an example of the public notice that is in the newspaper, was published in the newspaper, and also on our website. So this process is newer. It's the second time we've done it. The law was changed in 2023. As you mentioned, county auditors mailed the property tax notice to all residents a couple weeks ago. In that notice is the property tax proposed rate and tax dollar
004maximums for school, city, and county entities. There are other entities that levy taxes, but not required. as part of this new law. The public hearing requirement, as you mentioned, was posted on our website and social media sites. So a little bit about the property tax notice that all county residents received. So the form is prescribed, the calculation, the content is prescribed by the state of Iowa, and we can't change what it looks like. We enter information and then calculations occur. And what it's showing is showing a 12.1% increase for residential homeowners for next year based on the property tax levy. that we're proposing and it's showing a 13.95% tax increase for commercial property owners. And it's also showing an effective tax rate, which means that it's showing what if the district levied the same amount
005of taxes last year and it's dividing it by a number that actually shows a reduction in the rate. And so I think what this has caused is some confusion for the property taxpayers. So if I can offer a few clarifying points that I think would be helpful. So the actual increase for property taxes for a homeowner for the Waukee School District portion of the levy would be equal to the rollback, which is 2.36%. So in the calculation of property taxes, there's a few different pieces that impact the actual taxes paid by a homeowner in this example. The assessed value of a home. the rollback, and the tax rate. So the assessed value for most people will not change this year because it's not a revaluation or an assessment year. So that is the same. Our
006tax levy rate is also proposed to be the same. And so what will change is the impact that the rollback has. The rollback is decided by the Department of Management. I'm sorry, the Department of Revenue each year. And the rollback is a protection that's in place that limits the total amount of tax, the total amount of valuation change to 3%. So there's a protection there for taxpayers. So I think sometimes people see. you know, if their assessment goes up really high, there's a concern that their property taxes will also go up the same amount. And because of the rollback, it equalizes out that taxable amount. So I mentioned the 2.36% for the average homeowner. The notice also assumes a 10% valuation increase for homeowners, and that just isn't likely to happen. The notice does not
007take into account the valuations that are gained in the area from new homes and businesses that become part of the tax base, which spreads out the property taxes paid to those entities. The school funding formula that in the state of Iowa actually has a property tax impact so every student that we that we that enters the school district actually increases property taxes because of the way the funding formula is And so that again the the tax notice doesn't mention that I also want to mention a little bit about the management fund. So if you look at our public notice, which has actually more detail than residents received, it shows a very large increase in our management fund levy because over the last few years, we've been using fund balance in our management fund. to increase
008the cash reserve levy and the general fund because we needed to increase our solvency. And so for next year, the general fund levy comes down, the management fund levy goes up so that we can build up a reserve for our $4 to $5 million a year management fund expenditures. And so we've been able to do that planning and keep the tax levy rate the same for a number of years. And so when we kind of take a step through the property tax calculation, how will this impact a homeowner in our community? For a $300,000 home, the calculation that I went through increases the property tax for the year by $58. Sorry to interrupt. Did you have a presentation that you wanted to show as well as you went through? Yeah, so instead of presenting kind
009of specifically, I'm talking through the points. Perfect. Thank you. So the tax calculation is about $58 increase, which is 2.36%, which is that rollback amount, instead of the 12% in the property tax statement. Anything else? Thanks, Sarah. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much, Ms. Anfield. I will now invite Doug McHone. Oh, are there any written comments, Dan? No, no written comments were received. Thank you very much. I will now invite... Doug Mahone of Waukee to step forward. Hi, my name is Doug McCone. I live at, as you can see on the thing, 600 Southeast Driftwood Lane here in Waukee. Very happy to be living in Waukee. Been here about 10 years. And in the time that we've been there, the amount that we pay on our taxes has increased, we would say, dramatically.
010I work for Wells Fargo, and I got my start working in the tax area, working with escrow and other things. And I understand that there's multiple buckets, there's multiple calculations that go into this sort of thing. You have the value of the house, you have the amount that's being taxed, all these different things. And to the regular person out there, all we can really see is numbers that are jumping around like popcorn in an air popper. And it's kind of hard to really get a handle on it. And I got to say, after my 20 years in Wells Fargo, I can't help but think that's intentional. Our amount that we have paid out of pocket might go up or down a certain percentage or this or that and the valuation of our house, well, that's
011never gonna go down. It's just one of those inflationary things that everybody is feeling right now and just taking one more thing, one more thing, one more thing, but never giving it back, but just. Popcorning around numbers here and there just to make it look like there's some kind of relief going on When when you're the one writing your payment to your bank every single month and noticing that it never goes down It only goes up. It just feels like like What are we? Are we citizens or are we chattel for you to be able to bring more money out of us? And I, you know, I would work more with the taxing authority for various counties around the country. I did not expect to have this kind of talk in front of a school
012board where you don't. You don't levy taxes. You don't collect taxes. You receive the taxes and you apply them. And I don't understand this side of it as far as why this is a relevant place for me to be having this talk. And I know you're not going to answer me because you said that you wouldn't. You know, this is nothing personal here. But I do kind of question the value of my talking to you about this right now because you're not the ones that are raising the amount that we have to pay to our bank every single month. And it just gets frustrating. It gets confusing. And I know that we have. you know, had thoughts about moving outside of the town, shoot, if I could go into some unincorporated place that doesn't have
013enough people there to tax me, I think I would. And if that means that I don't have a Hy-Vee nearby that I can go to for my groceries, I'll drive a little bit farther just so I can have a little bit more of the value of my house remain where it is. And as far as the value of my house is concerned, I am not looking necessarily at what you say the house is worth. I'm looking at the memories that we build here. I'm looking at the the community that we have here and I'm looking at some of the neighbors in my neighborhood who have left for they would call it greener pastures but what it really is is a county that is Maybe just a little bit more judicious judicious with how they are
014handling the taxation So that that's kind of where I'm at. I didn't have anything elaborate. I don't have any bullet points All I have is what you mailed me and I think we're all a little bit grateful that my time is up Thank you Thank you very much, Mr. McComb. I'd now like to welcome up Eric Parra of Waukee. And I apologize if I mispronounced your name. No, that's perfectly fine. My name's Eric Parra. I've been a resident here of Waukee for six years. I don't have anything prepared at all. I'm just, once again, you know, you're the receivers of tax money. I just find it... confusing how things are going up as a result of more students coming in. Because along with more students, there's already more properties being bought. So when your base,
015overall tax base is expanding, what is the need then at that point to raise a tax rate? It doesn't make sense to me in terms of simplicity to get rid of how you eloquently said all the popcorn and things going around, which I agree is extremely confusing and sometimes willingly done so. I agree with that fully. It seems that if we simplify it a little bit more for everyone to understand, then there might be a little bit more buy-in into why these things are being done and a little bit more, for lack of a better word, transparent. Alright taxes in general when they're applied to things They're dissuade the purchase of that thing we have a tobacco tax for that reason you know you have In other areas they want to dissuade you from using
016gasoline versus electric My brother lives in California. It's very true. They don't have hard property taxes. They offset it with their gasoline tax to some extent, but they really want to push towards this EV mandate in the state by the year 2050, everyone EV. So they're raising the taxes to dissuade the use of that. In raising property taxes, are we trying to dissuade people from moving to Joaquin? And ultimately, also, for my neighbors who are retired, what choice do they have on fixed incomes? So that's that's all I have just off the top of my head listening a few things here once again You know I don't hold it against any of you. This is tough job being in public service understand fully that was that was my education in a department economics Stanford University
017Where I focus on public policy and urban development so I understand fully that these things are very very difficult to come to and to somewhat find a equilibrium between proper tax rates and have your outflows to what they need to be for growth. But it just doesn't make sense. The very basic thing I want people to understand is when you expand the tax base, we have home growth like crazy in Milwaukee. Why are we increasing the tax rate on each one of those homes? And that's all I want to know. Well, thank you very much. And that is all we had who had signed up to speak. I mean, Waukee has three high schools, right? Two. Are they going for three? We have land for a third. That's what I thought. If you would allow
018us to adjourn our meeting, I would happily talk to you offline. We just, this is a meeting held in the public, but it's not a public meeting. It's not a back and forth meeting. So we can close out, then I'll happily jump up and talk to you. So, yeah, you bet. I recommend that the Board of Directors adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. We stand adjourned.